IEEE publishes Gonzaga research on turning classwork into a game

What if finishing assignments correctly and passing tests was literally a game? A Gonzaga research project put the idea to the test and recently published their findings with the IEEE, the professional association for technological excellence.

Tristan Call (CS'22), Erik Fox (CS'20), and Dr. Gina Sprint (Assistant Professor of CS) co-wrote the article, "Gaming software engineering tools to motivate computer science students to start and finish programming assignments earlier," published in the April edition of IEEE Transactions on Education.

Their findings reinforce the idea that low-key group competition will generally motivate students to avoid procrastination.

In Spring 2020, the students in one of Dr. Gina Sprint's data structures course sections divided up into small teams. Individual coursework and exam results earned points for the team, which was tracked on a leaderboard. Results were compared to a second data structures section Dr. Sprint taught at the same time.

The full article is available from Dr. Sprint.