The Consistency of Gamification User Types: A Study on the Change of Preferences over Time

The Consistency of Gamification User Types: A Study on the Change of Preferences over Time

The Consistency of Gamification User Types: A Study on the Change of Preferences over Time

Ana Cláudia Guimarães Santos, Wilk Oliveira, Juho Hamari, Sivaldo Joaquim, Seiji Isotani

Abstract

"In recent decades, several studies have suggested and validated user models (e.g., Bartle, and Hexad) to represent different user proles in games and gamified environments. However, when applying these user models in practice (e.g., to personalize gamification), several studies reported contradictory outcomes. Recently, some studies outlined that one of the possible explanations for these contradictory findings is that people can present changes in their user proles over time. In this study (N = 118), we present an analysis of the consistency of gamification user orientations after six months of the initial identification, by analyzing the association between user orientations in the first and second data collection. Overall, our results corroborate prior research demonstrating that user orientations can not be considered stable over time and also that the strongest tendency of the users might not be sufficient to determine how users change. Furthermore, we were able to identify that some user orientations can be more stable than others and model some relationships between their proles after six months. Based on the results, we indicate a research agenda that can further the knowledge about the topic, as well as indicate a set of suggestions on how to model user proles based on our results."

Reference

Santos, A. C. G., Oliveira, W., Hamari, J., Joaquim, S., & Isotani, S. (2023). The consistency of gamification user types: A study on the change of preferences over time. Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611068

Keywords

User Modeling, Gamification, Empirical Study