Innovative e-learning designs in open and distance learning: A gamification-focused course model

Games and game culture is a concepts as old as humanity. Games, which are an integral part of human development and life, are used in different fields and for different purposes. This research aims to investigate learners' participation, flow, motivation and success in open and distance learning designs based on gamification theory. Agile methodology was used in this study, which is based on the theories and reflects them to practice in line with the determined purpose. The thesis writing process was seen as a project management system and the thesis report was determined as the final output of the project. The study was designed with the sequential explanatory research strategy, which is one of the mixed research methods. Demographic information, scale data and comments of the learners in the Development of E-learning Materials course were collected using an online questionnaire. In addition, the recorded information was used to capture, store and analyze the gamification activities of the learners in the Moodle LMS and Level up a plugin. As a of the research, it was observed that adult learners participation in gamification and learning activities was high. 23953 learning activities were recorded in the system. It was determined by the system data that the most common activity experienced by the learners was puzzle. It was observed that 76.7 of adult learners who participated in gamification activities successfully completed the Development of E-learning Materials course. The diversity of content and the intensity of interactive activities were positively received by the learners. Keywords: Open and Distance Learning, Gamification, The Agile Metholodogy, H5P, Instructional Design