The role of learners’ characteristics in educational gamification systems: a systematic meta-review of the literature

Gamification has gained an increasing attention from researchers and practitioners in various domains including education as it can increase learners' engagement and motivation. However, little is known about how educational gamification experiences can be influenced by learners' characteristics. Therefore, this study provides a systematic meta-review of empirical studies related to learners' characteristics and educational gamification experiences. The obtained results from the meta-analysis of forty related articles are: (a) learners' psychological and behavioral outcomes were affected by learners' characteristics in educational gamification systems; (b) quantitative methods, using questionnaires, are the most used method to measure the effect of learners' characteristics on their learning outcomes in educational gamification systems, and this needs to be changed to the new potential of using educational big data and learning analytics approaches; (c) personality traits is the most investigated characteristic followed by player types, but there is a need to further investigate other important factors of learners' characteristics, such as working memory capacity and age; and, (d) a set of game design guidelines that should be taken into consideration while designing educational gamification catering individual difference were proposed.