Deniz Marti | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Gamification Box: Automated Personalized Rewards for Improved Task Experience

We introduce a gamified rewarding system, called "Gamification Box", and conduct a user study to examine its effects on task experience and performance. Gamification Box provides an interface for automated rewards that are intrinsically enjoyable activities, such as watching short video clips. In a controlled user experiment, 118 participants completed a short-term memory task involving meaningless syllables under either a gamified reward condition or a non-rewarded control condition. Participants in the gamified condition reported significantly greater perceived task enjoyment than those in the control group. Importantly, this increase in perceived enjoyment did not come at the cost of performance: no significant differences were observed in free recall or recognition accuracy between conditions. These findings suggest that while gamified rewards may not directly enhance immediate performance, they function as a motivational regulator, thereby improving task enjoyment. The primary benefit of such systems may therefore lie in supporting sustained effort over time, where cumulative performance gains are more likely to emerge.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Motivating Data Science Students to Participate and Learn

Data science education is increasingly involving human subjects and societal issues such as privacy, ethics, and fairness. Data scientists need to be equipped with skills to tackle the complexities of the societal context surrounding their data science work. In this paper, we offer insights into how to structure our data science classes so that they motivate students to deeply engage with material about societal context and lean into the types of conversations that will produce long lasting growth in critical thinking skills. In particular, we describe a novel assessment tool called participation portfolios, which is motivated by a framework that promotes student autonomy, self reflection, and the building of a learning community. We compare student participation before and after implementing this assessment tool, and our results suggest that this tool increased student participation and helped them move towards course learning objectives.

cs.CY↗