Best of Both Worlds: The Inclusion of Gamification in Virtual Lab Environments to Increase Educational Value

Previous research investigating gamification and virtual laboratories has suggested that both are successful in educational outcomes, but few have looked at both gamification and virtual labs in tandem. This research explores the idea of investigating both contexts within one unified platform. We examine whether gamification within virtual labs is effective in enhancing learners' educational performance. Particularly, we employ leaderboards as a motivational gamification mechanism for more engagement and participation that can result in higher learning outcomes. Using a sample of students, our results show that utilization of gamification within a virtual lab environment causes students to exhibit higher performance in terms of more task accomplishments (specifically more complex tasks) and higher self-efficacy. The current findings show promising evidence on the positive influence of gamification within virtual lab learning environments.