EDUCATIONAL GAMIFICATION STRATEGIES: AN INTEGRATED DOCUMENT ANALYSIS OF DUOEDUCA APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Gamification in education may foster interest and participation, but its effects vary according to activity design, context, and teacher mediation. This study analyzed the potential, limitations, and conditions of use of Duoeduca, a gamified platform based on questions and team progression. The corpus comprised three undergraduate capstone papers published in 2025 and organized into two empirical families: four university applications and five school applications. Document analysis followed Bowen, while thematic synthesis adapted the procedures proposed by Thomas and Harden. Six categories structured the findings: engagement and acceptance; interaction and competition; review, feedback, and informal assessment; teacher mediation and workload; usability and operation; and perceived fairness and positional balancing. The sources reported predominantly favorable acceptance and involvement, as well as recurring uses for review, reinforcement, and answer discussion. Conversely, they identified lower individual participation in large groups and barriers related to preparing and editing questions. The results indicate potential for teacher-mediated review activities, conditioned by team organization, available time, and feedback quality. The evidence does not support claims of objective learning improvement or persistence of effects.