Investigating the Motivational Game Elements in Game-based Interventions in School Context: A Literature Review

This paper presents a scoping review on motivational game elements examined in game-based interventions for children's learning in school context in ACM Digital Library and Scopus, with a total of 119 articles reviewed. The aim of the review is to (1) reveal the current state of the art, (2) identify the types of interventions, the game elements, and investigate the core drives of the interventions, (3) examine the empirical findings on the link between motivation and game elements, and (4) define a future research agenda. The results of the scoping review show that interventions that utilize gamification for children are increasingly gaining attention, mostly involve game elements that address the drive for development and accomplishment, the studies mostly target children between 7 to 13 years and the educational domain. The results further show a wide range of game elements in relation to the core drives, and a need for more diverse studies.