Proposal for the use of a gamification activity in statistics classes in the Industrial Engineering course and the students' perception about this activity

Abstract

Active learning is increasingly desired because it places the student in a leading role and offers different possibilities for interaction between teachers and students. Considering the relevance of the dynamics of games in everyday life and the experience they provide for the subject, gamification emerges as a strategy that can be used in education. This paper presents a critical reflection on an innovative strategy in an Industrial Engineering course and aims to propose the use of a gamification activity and identify the students' perception of its contribution to their Statistics learning. A gamified strategy was adopted, through a game called “Who wants money?”, created by one of the authors. In this game, questions must have short answers, whether involving concepts or quick calculations and are answered in groups, allowing for learning between peers. To identify the effectiveness of the strategy, a Survey was carried out, using an anonymous questionnaire applied to the students. A descriptive analysis of the data was carried out and Chi-Square independence tests, Friedman's test, tests for means and proportions were carried out, as well as were tested the existence of linear relationships between pair of variables. The activity was well evaluated, both for detecting doubts and for understanding and fixing the content, with most students preferring this activity when compared to traditional exercise classes.