# Planning Gamification Strategies based on User Characteristics and DM: A Gender-based Case Study

**Authors:** Armando M. Toda, Wilk Oliveira, Lei Shi, Ig Ibert Bittencourt, Seiji Isotani, Alexandra Cristea  
**arXiv:** [1905.09146](https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.09146)  
**Date:** 2019-05-22  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/fr/paper/1905.09146v1/

## Abstract

Gamification frameworks can aid in gamification planning for education. Most frameworks, however, do not provide ways to select, relate or recommend how to use game elements, to gamify a certain educational task. Instead, most provide a "one-size-fits-all" approach covering all learners, without considering different user characteristics, such as gender. Therefore, this work aims to adopt a data-driven approach to provide a set of game element recommendations, based on user preferences, that could be used by teachers and instructors to gamify learning activities. We analysed data from a novel survey of 733 people (male=569 and female=164), collecting information about user preferences regarding game elements. Our results suggest that the most important rules were based on four (out of nineteen) types of game elements: Objectives, Levels, Progress and Choice. From the perspective of user gender, for the female sample, the most interesting rule associated Objectives with Progress, Badges and Information (confidence=0.97), whilst the most interesting rule for the male sample associated also Objectives with Progress, Renovation and Choice (confidence=0.94). These rules and our descriptive analysis provides recommendations on how game elements can be used in educational scenarios.