NATURE AND CRITIQUE OF THE GAMIFICATION PHENOMENON
NATURE AND CRITIQUE OF THE GAMIFICATION PHENOMENON

Summary/Abstract: Digital games are a significant fragment of lives of many people of almost every age category. Fashionability and popularity of these media products have launched an extensive discussion in the society of possible application of this concept in education, as, according to many theoreticians, the currently used teaching methods are inefficient, outdated, and lower the motivation of individuals to continue learning. Digital games might present one of the adequate solutions to this problem. Their partial components are being applied in the process of education through gamification. In practice, this phenomenon creatively uses elements and mechanics of digital games in order to naturally encourage interest, activity, and motivation of individuals during the educational process. Any element of a digital game can thus be a potential impulse for changing the character of education, whereas in the current situation regarding the spreading coronavirus, this form of education is more than desirable, despite its many pitfalls. The primary objective of the submitted paper is to present the nature and possible risks closely connected to the discussed phenomenon. In the presented theoretical reflection, we thus work with relevant publications by N. Esposito, M. J. P. Wolf, N. Vrabec, V. Kačinová, D. Buckingham, S. Deterding, S. Sanduskyová, and other authors that address definitions of a (digital) game, media education, and gamification itself. Our goal is to present the basic and topical terminological axis of the analysed issue on the one hand and, on the other hand, to point out the critical aspects related to this instrument of modern education, which might appear to be solely positive at first sight. To achieve the set ambition, we will apply logicalconceptual methods in the text.

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