Memrise, Gamification, and Self-Defeating Systems

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Abstract

f forms including multiple choice and typing your answers.This works great in theory, and seemingly in practice, apart from one issue. Memrise has a points system. You gain points from answering questions, and each course has its own weekly, monthly, and all-time leaderboards. Points are gained by learning new words or facts as well as reviewing old ones.The exact formula remains elusive, but there are two ways to boost your score without having to spend longer on the site. You can answer questions faster and you can answer them more accurately. Both seem to intuitively translate to better learning, but this isn’t necessarily the case.Greater accuracy is, of course, a sign of progress and something to aim for when learning, so it makes sense that points should be rewarded for this. The problem is that moving through questions faster doesn’t necessarily translate to better learning.Both bonus points for fast answers and the fact that you gain points for each question answered, encourage learners to answer as fast as possible. In theory, the presence of accuracy points should be enough incentive for them to only answer as fast as they can recall the answers, or else offer reasonable guesses.However, this misses the point that answering questions fast doesn’t translate to better learning. Learners aren’t primarily aiming to get high scores on their favorite websites or to be able to answer multiple-choice questions instinctively at a moment’s n

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otice. Learners want to learn, to be able to comprehend the things they’re being taught and then apply them.There are a lot of techniques that they can use to make this happen, like visualizing the thing being discussed or thinking about how it links to other elements they’ve learned. For languages specifically, repeating the words out loud and thinking about the individual elements of a phrase can be very helpful. The learner who buys into a gamified system like Memrise’s is fully disincentivized from “wasting time” with these tactics.This doesn’t mean that Memrise and similar tools are bad or not effective as a learning tools, and some learners may even do well racing through and aiming to score as many points as possible during a session. However, based on my own personal experience and anecdotal evidence from others, taking your time and allowing your brain to fully embrace whatever is in front of you is much more effective. Practicing pronunciation helps too, especially when the courses come with voiceovers to enable you to do just that.<ul><li>If you’re a learner, don’t write Memrise (or other similar products) off just because it’s not perfect, just make sure you focus more on learning than on points. Even with its faults, I still really like the site.</li><li>If you design learning or educational software, or you’re trying to gamify any other good habits, take care when establishing your incentives to make sure they don’t end up being counterproductive.</li></ul></article></body>

“Gamification” remains a popular tactic to motivate learners and grow userbases, but it can come with downsides too

I’ve been using Memrise to help me learn a new language, as I’m sure many of you will at some point. This article isn’t about language learning though, not specifically anyway. It’s about how sometimes systems are gamified just a little too much and suddenly they don’t prioritize learning the way they want to.

I’m assuming they want to hear. I’m sure there are some companies who happily churn out educational products who have no interest in whether anyone actually learns anything, so long as the dollars keep rolling in. They aren’t the companies we’re talking about.

If you aren’t familiar with Memrise, I’ll give you a very brief overview. It’s filled with courses, some official and some created by the users, which aim to teach you things. A lot of the time, this means languages, but it also includes things as diverse as identifying wild plants and animals. It uses a spaced repetition system based on answering questions that take a variety of forms including multiple choice and typing your answers.

This works great in theory, and seemingly in practice, apart from one issue. Memrise has a points system. You gain points from answering questions, and each course has its own weekly, monthly, and all-time leaderboards. Points are gained by learning new words or facts as well as reviewing old ones.

The exact formula remains elusive, but there are two ways to boost your score without having to spend longer on the site. You can answer questions faster and you can answer them more accurately. Both seem to intuitively translate to better learning, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

Greater accuracy is, of course, a sign of progress and something to aim for when learning, so it makes sense that points should be rewarded for this. The problem is that moving through questions faster doesn’t necessarily translate to better learning.

Both bonus points for fast answers and the fact that you gain points for each question answered, encourage learners to answer as fast as possible. In theory, the presence of accuracy points should be enough incentive for them to only answer as fast as they can recall the answers, or else offer reasonable guesses.

However, this misses the point that answering questions fast doesn’t translate to better learning. Learners aren’t primarily aiming to get high scores on their favorite websites or to be able to answer multiple-choice questions instinctively at a moment’s notice. Learners want to learn, to be able to comprehend the things they’re being taught and then apply them.

There are a lot of techniques that they can use to make this happen, like visualizing the thing being discussed or thinking about how it links to other elements they’ve learned. For languages specifically, repeating the words out loud and thinking about the individual elements of a phrase can be very helpful. The learner who buys into a gamified system like Memrise’s is fully disincentivized from “wasting time” with these tactics.

This doesn’t mean that Memrise and similar tools are bad or not effective as a learning tools, and some learners may even do well racing through and aiming to score as many points as possible during a session. However, based on my own personal experience and anecdotal evidence from others, taking your time and allowing your brain to fully embrace whatever is in front of you is much more effective. Practicing pronunciation helps too, especially when the courses come with voiceovers to enable you to do just that.

If you’re a learner, don’t write Memrise (or other similar products) off just because it’s not perfect, just make sure you focus more on learning than on points. Even with its faults, I still really like the site.

If you design learning or educational software, or you’re trying to gamify any other good habits, take care when establishing your incentives to make sure they don’t end up being counterproductive.