- most studies were quantitative 
- current gamification research has focused on collecting and examining usage data and directly inferring about user behavior
- table 6 outlines all the types of studies and the frequencies 

Chapman University

- all articles addressed the question of "does gamification work?" but the 24 papers still had varying implementations of motivational affordances, measurements of effectiveness (measuring different types of outcomes), results (negative or positive), and contexts

Results (Hamari et al. 2014)

Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014, January). Does gamification work?--a literature review of empirical studies on gamification. In 2014 47th Hawaii international conference on system sciences (pp. 3025-3034). Ieee.

Does Gamification Work? -- A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification

- the scientists grouped the motivational affordances found in the 24 papers into categories
- the categories and frequencies are found in table 2 below
- the most common groups were points, leaderboards, and badges

Results - Motivational Affordances (Hamari et al. 2014)

- 21 of the 24 papers analyzed behavioral outcomes
- when studying behavioral outcomes, the researchers analyzed use intentions and conducted experiments or statistical analyses 
- for studying psychological outcomes, the researchers analyzed motivation, attitude, enjoyment, and more by conducting interviews or questionnaires 

Results - Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes (Hamari et al. 2014)

- the majority of the papers supported the idea that gamification does provide positive effects. However, there were still negative results reported by some articles. 
- table 4 displays the positive effects as announced in the articles 
- some nuances identified by the articles to be aware of: effectiveness of gamification may depend on several aspects including users' motivation and the nature of the gamified system; the gamification effects may only be short-term due to novelty; removing gamification might lead to negative consequences for users that were using it at the time

Results - Reported Results (Hamari et al. 2014)

Results - Types of Studies (Hamari et al. 2014)

- "the context of gamification" means the activity or service that is being gamified
- table 5 displays all contexts that were studied in the articles 
- the most common one was using gamification in the field of education or learning
     - studies in this context found positive (e.g., improved engagement and enjoyment) and negative (e.g., heightened competition) outcomes
- none of the papers explicitly studied gamification in a marketing context, but the results have implications for businesses and management fields/aspects such as purchase behavior

Learn Before

Related