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Global Research in Higher Education
ISSN 2576-196X (Print) ISSN 2576-1951 (Online)
Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020
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63
Original Paper
Gamification for Teamwork Skills: Can a Challenge-based
Online Tournament Help Students Learn New Knowledge
Collaboratively in Teams?
Lisa Law1*, Martin Lau1, Y. W. Leung1, Theresa Kwong1 & Eva Y. W. Wong1
1 Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
* Lisa Law, Email: lisalaw@hkbu.edu.hk
Received: April 27, 2020 Accepted: May 8, 2020 Online Published: May 26, 2020
doi:10.22158/grhe.v3n2p63 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/grhe.v3n2p63
Abstract
The interest in deploying innovative technologies with gamification to engage student learning in
enjoyable style has been growing. This study aimed to investigate whether a purposely designed
eTournament with the integration of concepts of gamification and team development could help the
participating tertiary education students (N=416) from a variety of backgrounds in terms of culture
and discipline to learn to work in teams collaboratively in a challenge-based online game. The
qualitative data collected from the top 10 teams’ online discussions supported that the thoughtful
design of the eTournament did facilitate their development of teamwork skills. In addition, quantitative
data collected from two of the Post-game Questionnaire questions indicated that over 79% of the
respondents strongly agree or agree that they enjoyed the eTournamentin general, and over 84% of
respondents strongly agree or agree that they become more aware of the seventeen United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals because of the eTournament. Notwithstanding, findings in this study
show little evidence in supporting team-playing in PaGamO due to the design of the game regardless of
the teamwork skills developed in the early stage of the eTournament. Suggestions to address the
limitations of this study are also presented for future improvement.
Keywords
gamification, innovative technologies, multicultural and multidisciplinary, teamwork skills
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1. Introduction
With the recent trends of globalization and technology advancement, high level of teamwork skills are
commonly required from all graduates to be able to work in a diverse team environment for the
workforce in the 21st century. The popularity of adopting digital games not only motivate students to
learn in an enjoyable and engaging environment, but they also provide students with the opportunity to
learn to work in teams collaboratively (Suh, Wagner, & Liu, 2016). Gamification is the application of
game design elements in a non-game context (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011). The benefits
of gamification have attracted the attention of many educators/educational developers in the tertiary
education sector to provide learning platforms to learn to work in teams collaboratively. The use of
e-tools like Learning Management Systems (LMS) and instant messaging platforms allow virtual team
members from different parts of the world to carry out their discussions on given tasks (Powell, Piccoli,
& Ives, 2004) online in real-time mode. An eTournament with the adoption of advanced technologies
and challenge-based online game was designed in this study with the intention of engaging and
motivating student learning to solve current real-world problems (Gibson, 2012) collaboratively in teams
which could, in turn, facilitate their teamwork skills. Kiili (2005) suggested that online games could
facilitate participants’ learning effectiveness, problem-solving skills, and interpersonal interactions.
Team, regardless of whether they are face-to-face or virtual, evolve as members learn about each other,
resolve conflicts in style and values, and develop trust, cohesion, and shared norms (Bormann, 1990;
Tuckman, 1965). Team interactions differ overtime based on a group’s stage of development (McGrath,
1991). Virtual team interactions and activities accelerate leading up to interim deadlines (Gersick, 1988).
Many studies explained the effectiveness of using gamification to engage and motivate student learning,
however, there are few studies to investigate whether integrating the concepts of gamification and team
development could help tertiary education students with multicultural and multidisciplinary to learn new
knowledge collaboratively in a challenge-based online game platform. The purpose of this study was,
therefore, to investigate whether the design of an eTournament with the integration of concepts of
gamification and team development could help a number of 416 (N=416) tertiary education students with
multicultural and multidisciplinary to develop their teamwork skills through playing a challenge-based
online game called PaGamO. All the virtual teams formed in this study had to complete a series of online
tasks and training, from strategising to playing by answering questions on the seventeen United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) correctly.
Virtual teams, by definition, are teams that are geographically and/or temporally dispersed and are
brought together by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to accomplish assigned tasks
(Powell et al., 2004). Hence, good use of technology choices are key to developing successful virtual
team processes and structure (Maruping & Agarwal, 2004) together with digital games to enhance
learning effectiveness, learning motivation, and learning attitudes (Shih, Shih, Shih, Su, & Chuang,
2010).
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This study was conducted under a project titled “Developing Multidisciplinary and Multicultural
Competences through Gamification and Challenge-based Collaborative learning” (“CCGame Project” in
short) which is led by one of the leading liberal arts universities in Hong Kong, in collaboration with
three other higher education institutions in Hong Kong as well as a university in Australia. The project is
funded by the University Grants Committee of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the
leader university, and its aim is to better prepare students to work in multidisciplinary and multicultural
teams by deploying gamified learning. The CCGame Project is unique in such a way that the project team
adopted a gamified and challenge-based approach with an aim to nurture students’ competences to solve
global challenges. The seventeen SDGs (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs) proposed by the
United Nations were adopted as the theme of collaborative tasks/challenges in this study.
After conducting the first eTournament in early 2019 as a pilot and with reference to the internal review
as well as the participant feedback and comments, several enhancements were implemented, and the
eTournament was run again in January 2020 by inviting tertiary education students from all over the
world. 416 participants from 42 home regions and 37 higher education institutions were recruited and
deliberately put into teams of 4-5 by the project team, in which all members were of diverse backgrounds
and new to each other. In order to proceed to the different stages of the eTournament, all the virtual teams
had to complete a series of online tasks and training in Moodle, from strategising to playing an online
game (PaGamO) by answering questions correctly on the seventeen SDGs.
Multiple sources of evidence were used in this descriptive case study (Yin, 1984, p. 23) to interpret the
development of virtual teams over a period of 16 days of the eTournament. In this study, qualitative
methods such as online chat contents and audio-recorded online discussions were used to allow us to
examine events from a holistic perspective as they occurred naturally. These methods are oriented toward
discovery and exploration, and lead to the generation of a theory that is thoroughly found from the data
(Reichardt & Cook, 1979). The top 10 teams’ online discussions collected from their chosen messaging
platforms during the eTournament in relation to team building and game strategising (i.e., missions
selected; strategies to acquire/attack/upgrade the territory in PaGamO to earn scores etc.) were analysed
and the findings were further supplemented with the quantitative data collected from the two selected
Post-game questionnaire questions regarding participants’ overall impression of the eTournament and
their perceived improvement of increasing awareness of SDGs. The four themes categorised from the
keyword framework devised for this study are positively coherent with the rationale of designing this
eTournament in terms of team building and game strategising. Quantitative results also reviewed that
over 79% of the respondents strongly agree or agree that they enjoyed the eTournament in general, and
84% of the respondents strongly agree or agree that they become more aware of the SDGs because of the
eTournament. Findings from the qualitative data may offer different views from that of the quantitative
one but they should support each other in terms of the study paradigms (Smith & Heshusius, 1986) and
such a comparison is useful for establishing validity and reliability (Goetz & LeCompte, 1984) of a study.
However, findings in this study showed little evidence in supporting team-playing in PaGamO due to the
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nature of the game design itself regardless of the teamwork skills developed in the early stage of the
eTournament. Suggestions to address some limitations found in this study will also be presented for
future improvement. The findings in this study provided some useful insights for educators/educational
developers who want to deploy similar innovative technologies to facilitate students’ collaborative team
learning through gamification when they can only meet online.
2. Literature Review
2.1 What is Gamification and Challenging Game-based Learning?
Gamification refers to the use of game elements, such as design techniques, thinking, and mechanics to
enhance non-game contexts to engage users with the adoption of information technologies (Khaleel,
Sahhari, Wook, & Ismail, 2016, p. 868). Gamification does not require “game playing” in the traditional
sense, but it requires the adoption of the reward system of games, where participants receive points,
proceed to higher levels, or receive badges for good performance (Deterding et al., 2011). This setting
allows participants to experience game-like dynamics to earn rewards (e.g., points and badges), track
their performance, set goals, join challenges, and compete with others in the community (Burke, 2014).
Wang and Chen (2010) found that challenging games enable students more challenging and engaging in
gaming activities. Therefore, the positive impact of using challenge-based approach gamification can
improve student’s engagement, expanding time working on tasks, and increasing satisfaction/enjoyment
with learning (Gibson, 2018; Johnson & Adams, 2010). Suh et al. (2016) reported that gamification
could offer a wider variety of solutions that can better motivate students to learn collaboratively instead
of individually. Clarke-Midura, Code, Mayrath, and Dede (2012) suggested that digital games and
simulations designed for team performance are characterised by integrated, media-rich contexts with
multiple layers of interaction with peers as well as computational resources, which provides a foundation
for authentic performance of individual and team-based problem-solving processes.
2.2 Gamified Learning Experience
Gamified learning not only offers students enjoyable learning experience but also improves their positive
perceptions of the overall game experience if they are able to interact with games effectively as suggested
by Klimmt, Hartmann, and Frey (2007). Chen, Wann-Yih, and Dennison (2018) further concluded the
enjoyable gamified learning experience is dependent on: (i) how participants feel during game-play; (ii)
whether game experience matches the prerequisite and characteristics; and (iii) balance between
participants’ own abilities/skills and demands of the game-tasks.
2.3 How the Use of Internet Technology Facilitate Virtual Team-Collaboration?
The popularity of using internet technology to connect the world allows immediate responses with
constant updates through messaging applications like WhatsApp, WeChat, Skype etc. The immediacy of
responses received from the virtual platform can better facilitate discussion and engagement with a
constant update (Rozzell et al., 2014). Participants are likely using other platforms like social media more
frequently for discussion (Bolton et al., 2013; Lau, Chan, Wong, Kwong, & Gibson, 2019). With the
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support of the advanced technologies to facilitate the online challenge-based gamified learning, students
will be motivated by their curiosity and desire to learn more by solving real-world problems themselves
individually or as a team (Gibson, Irving, & Scott, 2017).
2.4 How to Develop Students’ Teamwork Skills for the Workforce in the 21st Century via Online
Game-based Learning?
In view of the globalization, it is important for tertiary education students to develop their teamwork
skills for the workforce in the 21st century. The benefits of using online game-based learning can be
adopted to facilitate students’ teamwork skills development in terms of (i) communication skills; (ii)
collaborative skills; (iii) critical thinking skills; and (iv) motivation. Bodnar and Clark (2017) remarked
that the use of online game-based learning could enhance students’ oral and written communication
skills (p. 36) when they worked together for game activities. Bakan and Bakan (2018) observed that
participants in the game-based learning environment could work collaboratively to achieve the game
goals which created a space where they can freely explain, discuss, and listen to each other (p. 17).
Cicchino (2015) suggested that by using game-based learning for problem-solving can effectively
facilitate students’ higher levels of critical thinking development. Last but not least, Brewer et al. (2013)
also suggested that gamification can improve students’ motivation when they managed to complete
related task activities in a game.
2.5 Adopting Tuckman’s Four Stages of Team Development Model for Developing Virtual Team
It is suggested by Tuckman’s Four Stages of Team Development Model that teams are developed
through the process of four stages, i.e., Stage 1: Forming-team members are concerned with resolving
both interpersonal relationships and task activities; Stage 2: Storming-starts when intra-group conflict,
arises as team members resist the influence of the team and rebel against the accomplishment of the task;
Stage 3: Norming-where in-group feeling and cohesiveness develop, new standards evolve and new roles
are adopted; Stage 4: Performing-in which the teams shows proficiency in working together to achieve its
goals and becomes more flexible in following their procedures for working together (Tuckman, 1965). If
a team can be defined as “any group of people who work together” (Collins, 2020) according to the
Collins dictionary, then a virtual team would share more or less the same characteristics. The main
difference is the virtual team mainly works in an online environment. It was pointed out by Adams and
Adams (1997) that a virtual team would rely on electronic communication tools for task discussions
because the members were geographically separated.
3. Background of the Study
The project team organised the first “United Nations SDG International eTournament” in early 2019 with
9 of the 17 SDGs adopted as a pilot run. According to the experience gained and the student feedback
collected from the first eTournament, the project team implemented several improvements to the
eTournament with all the 17 SDGs adopted, and ran the improved eTournament in January 2020 (the
event schedule is shown in Figure 1). There were 3 objectives for the 2020 eTournament, namely to (1)
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provide opportunities to students from different parts of the world, who do not know each other before
joining the eTournament, to learn to work together as online teams to complete specific tasks; (2) allow
the participating students to learn more about the SDGs; and (3) learn about the different cultures and
background of their teammates.
Figure 1. Schedule of eTournament 2020
A major concern of forming virtual teams in this eTournament was team-building, as the members of
each team were put together by the project team and they did not know each other. With reference to
Tuckman’s Four Stages of Team Development (Tuckman, 1965), the project team purposely designed
the procedure of facilitating diverse virtual team development with the effective use of information
technologies. Table 1 below explains how the project team facilitated the virtual team development in
each stage of the eTournament in reference to Tuckman’s model as mentioned in section 2.5.
Table 1. Development of Virtual Teams for eTournament 2020 with Effective Use of Information
Technologies and Online Challenge-based Gamified Learning
4 Stages of
Tuckman’s
Team
Development
Development of Virtual Teams for eTournament 2020 with Effective Use of
Information Technologies and Online Challenge-based Gamified Learning
Forming
In this orientation phase, the project team formed the teams by:
Taking the role to form virtual teams of 4 or 5 participants rather than by
participants themselves to ensure diversity (more details will be given
below);
Explaining the details of the eTournament to all participants through the
“Welcome Guide”;
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Encouraging virtual team members to make efforts to know each other via
online discussions;
Collecting teams’ preferred instant messaging applications (i.e., Skype,
WeChat, WhatsApp or Moodle) via discussion forum in Moodle in Stage 1.
Note: Project team has the right to access every team’s chosen chat platform
for progress monitoring and data collection purposes.
Storming In this internal team problem-solving phase, newly formed virtual teams come to
know each other better and should be able to:
Identify each team member’s strengths and weaknesses in achieving the
goals of the eTournament before appointing their respective team leaders
through communication over different instant messaging tools as suggested
by the project team;
Appoint respective team leaders as the contact point between the team and
the project team. He/she also has to manage any conflicts that may arise from
within their virtual team members.
Norming A stage of growth and productivity developed among the virtual teams during a
period of 5 days in Stage 1 of eTournament for “Team Strategising”.
The project team provided conciseonline training materials on Moodle like
understanding culture, teamwork, managing conflicts, a brief guide on PaGamO,
for each participant to self-learn themselves in their free time in order to
prepare/move the teamsfrom the team development phase to the idea
development phase for playing PaGamO online, i.e., team strategising. The
relationship of the virtual team members should have strengthened in this stage
when they agreed on rules and strategies on how to approach/play the game
which in turn should increase their trust with each other as a team.
Performing A final stage for qualified virtual teams to work together to compete on PaGamO
through answering questions related to the seventeen SDGs during a period of 7
days in Stage 2 of the eTournament. Each team was assigned with an SDG and
was invited to allocate at least 40 minutes for a detailed synchronous online
discussion-the purpose was to allow participants the opportunity to exchange and
share each other’s own experience and knowledge about the chosen SDG.
A two-stage “strategise-play” approach was adopted for eTournament 2020. Figure 2 shows more details
of the 2 stages of the eTournament.
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Figure 2. Stages of eTournament 2020
One of the uniqueness of the eTournament was on the team formation. While most competitions require
participants to form teams by themselves, it was prohibited in the eTournament. In order to ensure a good
mix of students of different backgrounds in a team, teams were formed by the project team. One of the
rules followed by the project team in grouping the enrolled students into teams was that there should not
be more than 2 students coming from the same institution, even if their home countries/regions were
different. At the beginning of the eTournament, 84 virtual teams, of 4 or 5 students per team, were
formed among 416 participants.
Moodle was deployed as the portal site of the eTournament, which provided information to the students
such as the “Welcome Guide” of the eTournament, for them to complete some of the tasks required, and
acted as (for most of the teams) the alternative messaging platform before they chose and moved to their
preferred instant messaging platform.
When the students played in Stage 1 of the eTournament (duration: 5 days), they were required to, firstly
on the portal site, get to know the teammates and agree on the instant messaging platform to be used
during the game (the teams could choose from Skype, WeChat or WhatsApp, or to stay on the Moodle
portal site for the discussions). Then, the teams moved to the chosen platform and continued the
remaining Stage 1 tasks: (i) to agree on who would be the Team Leader; (ii) to choose the characters to be
used in the PaGamO game in Stage 2 to maximise the chance of winning; (iii) to agree on how the team
would collaborate (e.g., meeting frequencies); and (iv) to start to work out the team’s game strategies for
the PaGamO game in Stage 2. When Stage 1 ended, an initial review on the discussions of each team was
done to determine the activeness of the participants. All inactive participants were disqualified.
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Due to the fact that there were teams with members disqualified, regrouping was done so that the
qualified teams in Stage 2 were of more even team sizes. In Stage 2 (duration: 7 days), participants were
required to (i) expand/upgrade their territory on PaGamO as much as possible by answering related
SDGs questions, (ii) revisit the game strategies discussion done in Stage 1 for adjustments, if necessary.
At the beginning of the PaGamO game, a small territory in a virtual world was allocated to each
participant by the project team as a start. Participants could (i) acquire the empty slots next to their
territories, (ii) attack others’ territories next to their territories, and (iii) “train” their own territories for
better resistance to attacks. Figure 3 shows the flowchart of playing PaGamO. All the mentioned actions
were possible only if they answered the SDG questions correctly.
Figure 3. The Game Play of PaGamO
A typical PaGamO game screen is shown in Figure 4. The bigger the territory expanded/upgraded, the
higher the score one would get for the game. On playing PaGamO in Stage 2, participants were given a
brief guide on how to play PaGamO in Moodle. They could select and complete “missions” of a chosen
SDG according to the levels of difficulty (i.e., normal or hard; see Figure 5) for different rates of scoring.
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Figure 4. The PaGamO Game Screen Figure 5. Different Missions for the SDGs
In order to facilitate students to learn more about the different cultures and backgrounds of their
teammates, an SDG was assigned to each team, and the teams were invited to spend at least 40 minutes
on a synchronous online discussion (Skype or ZOOM were suggested) to discuss on the assigned SDG in
more depth, and to submit the recording of the discussion to the project team for a 20% bonus to the team
score. To help the teams get started with the discussions, the project team prepared sets of guiding
questions for each SDG (see Figure 6).
Figure 6. A Sample of the Guiding Questions for the Synchronous Online Discussions
3.1 Scores and Incentives
The scores of individuals and teams were calculated according to a number of factors, such as the
quantity and quality of the discussions done during the eTournament, team members’ performance in the
PaGamO game in Stage 2 (including the number of correct SDG questions answered, size and level of the
land acquired, amount of land upgrades, etc.), and the number of active members on the team. In addition,
to motivate students to complete particular activities throughout the eTournament, a number of bonus
and penalty scores were set up as incentives. For example, a bonusteam score was given to the teams
which completed the synchronous discussion on the assigned SDG, and a penalty was imposed to teams
which did not have team leaders.
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Based on the scores, winning teams and individuals were determined, and cash prizes were awarded. The
winners were also invited to share their eTournament experience in an online symposium to be organised
by the project team in June 2020.
4. Method
4.1 Participants
416 students from 42 home regions (studying at 38 higher education institutions around the world,
majoring in different disciplines) registered for the eTournament through open recruitment. 84 teams
were formed by the project team as mentioned previously. After Stage 1, inactive students were
disqualified and 268 students (64% of the initial number of participants) could proceed to Stage 2 to play
PaGamO. Team regrouping was done to the teams with disqualified students, resulting in 59 teams
competing with each other on PaGamO in Stage 2. During the eTournament, student discussions were
recorded as evidence of participation.
4.2 Data Collection
To obtain performance data of the teams and individual students for scoring, and to better understand
whether the eTournament could help participants learn new knowledge collaboratively online, data
collection from several sources at different stages of the eTournament was done. Figure 7 illustrates the
data taken for the analyses of this study.
Figure 7. Data Collection in the Study
The focus of this study was on the two types of data collected. The first type of data was the online
discussions of the teams. The chat histories of top 10 teams were extracted. The top 10 teams consisted of
totally 43 participants with the size of each team ranged from 4 to 5 participants. The chat histories were
analysed through the text mining results from Education University of Hong Kong’s Bilingual Text
Mining System (TMS; http://analytics.ied.edu.hk/tms). One of the core functions of the TMS is to
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“mine” text data by obtaining the occurrence frequencies of specific words against a predefined
“keyword framework”, which contains categorised lists of keywords and their synonyms (a group of a
particular keyword and its synonyms is referred as a “keyword group” in this study). When those
text-matching frequencies were inspected by categories, they could be regarded as indicators showing
whether students discussed the topics relevant to the various aspects of the eTournament, as well as their
extents. In addition, by comparing the keyword occurrence frequencies obtained from the text data
collected at different time periods of the eTournament, the changes of discussion foci could be observed.
As mentioned above, a keyword framework containing words relevant to the study was required. For this
study such a framework was created by adding the keywords anticipated to appear in the online
discussions, with further synonyms and related words added according to the observations from the
eTournament, thesaurus lookup as well as the Latent Dirichlet Allocation processing provided by the
TMS on the discussions collected from all the teams. The keywords were then categorised into four main
themes according to the discussion questions set for the eTournament: Team Building (8 keyword
groups), Team Leader (5 keyword groups), Collaboration (4 keyword groups) and Game Strategy (13
keyword groups). Please refer to the Appendix for the full list.
In addition to the chat histories of the teams done on the instant messaging platforms, the online
discussions analysis also included those on Moodle, on which most of the teams performed initial
discussions before agreeing and moving to the instant messaging platforms approved by the
eTournament project team. This was to ensure that a more complete picture of the discussions of the
target teams were obtained and analysed. The following four text mining exercises (see Table 2) were
carried out in order to obtain the occurrence frequencies of the keywords of the four themes mentioned
above. Also, by comparing the frequencies in Stage 1 with those in Stage 2, the relevant changes in
discussion foci over the course of the eTournament could be observed.
Table 2. The Four Text Mining Exercises
eTournament Stage 1 eTournament Stage 2
Discussions on team
building
1. The discussions on the 3
questions (getting to know the
teammates, electing the team
leader, and ways to work together)
performed in the 5-day Stage 1 of
the eTournament
2. The discussions on the 3 questions
(getting to know the teammates,
electing the team leader, and ways to
work together) performed in the
7-day Stage 2 of the eTournament, as
well as the 4-day break between the
stages
Discussions on game
strategising
3. The discussions on game
strategies performed in the 5-day
Stage 1 of the eTournament
4. The discussions on game strategies
performed in the 7-day Stage 1 of the
eTournament, as well as the 4-day
break between the stages
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To better differentiate the discussions on team building from those on strategising, the teams were
advised to create two chat groups on their preferred instant messaging platforms, namely “Team
Development” (for team building) and “Idea Development” (for strategising) for discussion accordingly.
As it servesonly as an advice, it was observed that some teams just performed their online discussions in
a single chat group, or some of them discussed on all required topics without observing the nature of the
chat groups.
The second type of data analysed in this study was the quantitative data collected from the Post-game
Questionnaire for which all the participants who remained active at the end of Stage 2 were invited to
complete. The responses to two of the questions in the questionnaire—one asking their “overall
impression” of the eTournament and another asking their “perceived improvement of SDGs awareness”,
with the demographic data of the students (i.e., their levels of study) correlated—will be analysed and
presented. The responses to these two questions could serve as indicators showing the effectiveness of
the eTournament.
5. Results
Figure 8 shows the keyword occurrence frequency comparison (Stage 1 versus Stage 2) of the
discussions related to “Team Development” of the top 10 teams.
Figure 8. Keyword Occurrence Frequencies of the Discussions Related to “Team Development”
of the Top 10 Teams (Stage 1 vs. Stage 2)
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As illustrated in Figure 8 (see the Appendix for the keywords shown on the X-axis), keywords were
grouped under four themes (i.e., Team Building, Team Leader, Collaboration and Game Strategy) with
their respective occurrence frequencies found in Stage 1 and 2 of the eTournament upon the online
discussions in relation to team development. It was observed that the winning teams did a lot of
discussions on team building in Stage 1 than Stage 2; moreover, from the keywords matched, the
discussions were seemed to cover not only team building but also the game strategies. This may reflect
that winning teams wished to be better prepared for the game by communicating with each other and
discussing related strategies on playing PaGamO which involved their interpersonal communication,
problem-solving and critical thinking skills to come up with a common consensus in achieving the
goals of the eTournament.
Furthermore, Figure 9 shows the keyword occurrence frequency comparison (Stage 1 versus Stage 2) of
the discussions related to “Strategising” of the top 10 teams.
Figure 9. Keyword Occurrence Frequencies of the Discussions Related to “Strategising” of the
Top 10 Teams (Stage 1 vs. Stage 2)
According to Figure 9 (see the Appendix for the keywords shown on the X-axis), there were more
discussions on game strategies in Stage 2 than Stage 1, which is expected, and that the discussions
focused on the strategies rather than team building. This observation has reflected that the winning team
members placed much of their attention on strategising for the game in Stage 2, as they may regard their
team building had finished. These game-winning behaviours seem to be a result of enjoying the
challenges (Wang & Chen, 2010) provided by the game which appears to contribute to the success of the
teams. However, no team-playing evidence was recorded in playing PaGamO.
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In addition, the four highlighted themes shown in Figure 8 and Figure 9 fully match with the rationale of
team development as suggested by Tuckman (1965) that the project team adopted in developing the
virtual teams of eTournament 2020 with the use of information technologies as described in Table 1.
These findings appear to provide positive support to the right approach that the project team adopted for
this study.
Overall impression and perceived improvement of SDGs awareness and the level of study of the
participant students
286 participants who were qualified to proceed to Stage 2 of eTournament were invited to respond to a
Post-game Questionnaire, in which there are two questions about their “overall impression of the
eTournament” and their “perceived improvement of SDGs awareness” respectively:
Q1. In general, I enjoyed playing this eTournament
Q2. I become more aware of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals because of
this eTournament
(Both Questions are on Likert Scale, i.e., 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Neutral,
4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree)
162 out of 268 responses (60%) were received, which included 10 sub-degree student participants, 112
undergraduate student participants, 28 master degree student participants and 12 doctoral student
participants. The results are shown in Table 3 below.
Table 3. Mean and Standard Deviation of Participants’ Overall Impression of the eTournament
and Perceived Improvement of Increasing SDGs Awareness (N=162)
Question Items Level of Study N Mean SD
Q1: In general, I enjoyed
playing this
eTournament
Sub-degree 10 3.7 1.16
Bachelor’s degree 112 3.99 0.935
Master degree 28 4.18 0.772
Doctoral degree 12 4.17 0.718
Total 162 4.02 0.909
Q2: I become more
aware of the SDG
Sub-degree 10 3.4 1.265
Bachelor’s degree 112 4.283 0.808
Master degree 28 4.32 0.819
Doctoral degree 12 4.42 0.793
Total 162 4.24 0.862
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In general, most participants enjoyed the eTournament with a mean value of 4.02 (M=4.02) and agreed
that the eTournament had raised their awareness of the SDGs with a mean value of 4.24 (M=4.24). The
results also indicate that participants from undergraduate and postgraduate degree levels tended to favour
with a higher rate, while the sub-degree level of participants had given lower rates in both “overall
impression” of the eTournament and “perceived improvement of SDGs awareness”. While the sample
size is rather small, it seems to indicate that the gamification through eTournament had more impact on
participants with higher academic study level as it required a certain level of self-motivation and
self-learning skills towards game-playing.
In summary, the overall impression of this eTournament, 79% of the respondents strongly agree or agree
that they enjoyed the eTournament in general, and 84% (see Figure 10) of the respondents strongly agree
or agree that they become more aware of the SDGs because of the eTournament.
Figure 10. Charts Showing the “Overall Impression”of the eTournament (top) and the
“Perceived Improvement of SDGs Awareness” (bottom) of the Respondents (N=162)
6. Discussion
Under the model of Tuckman’s Four Stages of Team Development (Tuckman, 1965), this study was
designed in such a way to foster a number of 416 international tertiary education students of diverse
backgrounds to learn to work in teams collaboratively (Suh et al., 2016) through playing a
challenge-based online game (PaGamO) by answering questions on the seventeen SDGs. A series of
online tasks and training was designed to prepare participants to understand the necessary team building
concepts like team communication, collaborative teamwork, problem-solving and critical thinking, and
how to play PaGamO. Findings revealed that 79% of respondents enjoyed and engaged in the challenge
gaming activities (Wang & Chen, 2010) designed in the eTournament because of their good feeling of
playing the game that matched the game prerequisite and their ability to handle the demands of the
game-tasks as suggested by Chen, Wu and Dennison (2018). 84% of the respondents become more aware
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of the SDGs (see Figure 10). The reward system adopted in the eTournament required participants to
complete the mandatory online tasks/training before they were qualified to move up stages and earn
scoring as explained in section 3.1 for good performance, this kind of setting allowed participants to
experience game-like dynamics as suggested by Deterding et al. (2011). Different data analyses were
carried out onto the online discussions of the top 10 teams, as described in section 4.2. The four themes
according to the discussion questions set for the eTournament, namely Team Building, Team Leader,
Collaboration and Game Strategy were closely followed the design strategy of the eTournament for
fostering the team development of the virtual teams under the model of Tuckman’s Four Stages of Team
Development (Tuckman, 1965) as described in Table 1. Below are the observations made from Figure 8
regarding the keyword occurrence frequencies of the discussions related to “Team Development” of the
top 10 teams.
At the beginning of the eTournament, the team members were new to each other, and the
winning team members spent a lot of time on discussing team-related issues (i.e., team
building) and game strategies in Stage 1 than in Stage 2 under the provision of ICTs and
e-tools (Powell et al., 2004) to communicate with each other. The use of these e-tools like
instant messaging could enhance virtual team’s ability to interact and create a strategic
advantage (Razmerita, Kirchner, & Sudzina, 2009) online with instant responses.
Winning team members seemed to demonstrate their interpersonal communication,
problem-solving and critical thinking skills when discussing with their virtual teammates to
come out with a common consensus in achieving the game goals (i.e., team’s game strategies)
of the eTournament in Stage 1.
With the better understanding of the goals of the eTournament after completing a series of
online tasks and training, the winning team members spent more time on discussing the best
candidate among themselves to be the respective team leaders under the theme of “Team
Leader” in Stage 1 than in Stage 2.
Once team members developed trust and the winning team members spent more time on
discussing how to collaborate with each other for playing the game in Stage 1 under the
theme of “Collaboration” than that of Stage 2.
It was observed that the virtual teams spent a significant amount of time in discussing game
strategies in Stage 1 than in Stage 2 under the theme of “Game Strategy” which appears to
contribute to their success in playing the game.
Further observations were made from Figure 9 regarding the keyword occurrence frequencies of the
discussions related to “Idea Development” of the top 10 teams are described below.
The frequencies show that the members of the winning teams spent a lot of time on discussing
game strategies and very little in team-related matters in Stage 2 as participants mainly
focused on strategies how to play PaGamO in order to earn more score and neglected the team
playing element.
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The PaGamO game is designed for individual players rather than teams. Despite the fact that
team members’ scores would be combined as the team’s score, it was observed that
participants played the challenges of PaGamO by themselves.
Not much teamwork skills nor game strategising they discussed in the early stage of the
eTournament could apply in playing PaGamO in Stage 2. There was no record of recording
team playing pattern.
7. Conclusion
In summary, the study indicated that a thoughtful design of the eTournament by integrating the concepts
of gamification and the four stages of Tuckman’s Team Development Model as explained in Table 1,
could facilitate participants from multicultural and multidisciplinary to learn to work in teams
collaboratively in a challenge-based online game. In addition, the eTournament had provided game-like
dynamics (Burke, 2014) for participants to earn rewards like scores, prizes as described in section 3.1
which seemed to motivate their participation as reflected by the number of 268 out of 416 participants
qualified to proceed to Stage 2 of eTournament to play the challenging game of PaGamO. From the
evidence presented in the previous sections, many participants seemed to be able to learn to work in
virtual teams collaboratively through the different stages of the eTournament with increasing enjoyment
in learning new knowledge (Gibson, 2018; Johnson & Adams, 2010). By relating the results obtained
from Post-game Questionnaire, requiring participants to answer SDG-related questions on the
challenge-based gamified learning platform PaGamO seemed to promote their awareness of the issues
relevant to the SDGs. The analysis results of this study appear to show that the provision of information
technologies and etools in the study greatly facilitate participants’ teamwork skills as explained
previously. In addition, gamification via challenge-based learning could enhance student’s learning by
offering a more enjoyable and motivating experience at the individual level as well as at team level if the
game was designed in a team-playing style. Furthermore, it could be seen that the teamwork skills
developed at the early stages of the eTournament facilitated participants’ interpersonal communication,
collaborative learning and team-based problem-solving skills which are all important teamwork skills for
the 21st century. Therefore, this study concludes that the adoption of challenge-based online game could
help students from multicultural and multidisciplinary to learn new knowledge collaboratively in teams
to some degree, which in turn facilitated their teamwork skills development. These are encouraging
results from the thoughtful design of the eTournament.
8. Limitations
Despite the positive and supportive findings found in this study, no record or evidence of team-playing
game was found due to the design of PaGamO as it was a very much an individual-playing game and
data collection for team-playing was therefore missing. Moreover, more specific teamwork elements
could be incorporated/built into the team-playing game design for direct data collection from the game
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itself. Last but not least, the period of time for team development could be longer to allow team
members more time to develop their trust and confidence in working together as a virtual team for
achieving higher game performance. A period of 16 days designed for this eTournament was rather
short. These limitations could be used as tips for future improvement if a similar design will be used to
engage and motivate student learning through online gamified learning in the tertiary education sector
where international students can only meet online.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the University Grants Committee of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region and Hong Kong Baptist University for funding this project.
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Appendix
Keyword framework for this study
Identified
Themes
Keywords Matching
Team
Building
introduction/ introduce/ name
glad/good/happy/welcome/delighted/ nice
year/freshman/sophomore/postgraduate/undergraduate/master/doctor/doctoral/associate degree/bachelor
degree/certificate/diploma/degree
department/faculty/university/college/major/specialisation/specialization
sustainable development goals/sdg/sdgs
interested/interesting/look forward/looking
forward/expect/expectation/expects/hope/hopes/wish/wishes/friend/friends/together/altogether/anticipate
language/ languages
experience/interest/experiences/interests
Team Leader
leader/leadership/leaderships
member/team/role/members/roles/teams/teamwork
nominate/elect/volunteer/suggest/nominates/election/elects/volunteers/suggests
support/recommend/contribute/work/contact/supports/recommends/contributes/works/contributions/contribution
agree/consent
Collaboration
wechat/whatsapp/phone/id/ skype/facebook/fb/ instagram/ig/telegram/tg/messenger/line
groups/group/form/forms
team/formation
meet/discuss/chat/meets/chats/share/shares
Game
Strategy
game/strategy/rule/strategies/rules/method/methods/idea
character/characters/attributes/attribute/account/avatar
attack/occupy/upgrade/invade/expand/attacks/occupies/upgrades/invades/invasion/expands/expansion/assault/assaults
land/sea/tile/territory/score/multiplier/penalty/wealth/ground/lands/seas/tiles/territories/scores/multipliers/penalties/
defense/defends/defend/protect/protection/protects
divide/division/group/groups/divides/grouping
level/levels/construct/constructions/builds/point
time/hour/minutes/hours/minute/times/energy/money/hp
tool/item/terrain/portal/backpack/treasure/tools/items/terrains/portals/backpacks/treasures/resources/resource
topic/topics/subtopic/sub-topic/subtopics/sub-topics/question/questions/answer/answers
aggressive/conservative/advantage/advantages
recover/recovery/win
baatar/ buy/ portal
