A Systematic Review of Research on Learning Writing Skills Using Gamification

Abstract

Multimodal interactive text genres, such as games, have gained wide popularity, while the reading of written texts has decreased among today’s youth, affecting their writing skills as well. In this systematic review, we investigate how games can be beneficial in writing learning. By combining and analysing the results of 11 academic articles on the gamification of writing learning, we discuss how games can support pupils’ writing processes while promoting transmedia skills. The immersive aspects of games can encourage young writers’ sense of agency, fluency and internal motivation. Games also encourage verbal rehearsal and collaborative creation. Additionally, games seem to promote idea generation, character development and other narrative and personal-imaginative genre features, while in factual writing, games can also develop an incoherent writing attitude. While the results seem rather encouraging, there is a lack of discussion regarding how the transfer of learning can be supported.