QMplus plug-in Level Up offers an opportunity to support student engagement and learning through gamification. It can also help students develop positive learning behaviours through giving them access to their own learning engagement analytics data. In this article, we share how Dr Usman Naaem (School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science) and Dr Jo Elliott (DES) have used Level Up in a large first-year module.
ECS417U – Fundamentals of Web Technology is a large first-year module designed to help students understand how the World Wide Web operates while providing them with practical programming skills. Through this course, they gain hands-on experience with various web programming languages and technologies. Each week, students engage with a variety of learning activities and materials, including lectures, videos, practical exercises, quizzes and formative lab sessions.
As module organiser, Usman has been using learner engagement analytics to assess students’ engagement with learning activities for several years. In 2024/25, he and Jo, as part of their Queen Mary Academy Fellowships, decided to explore how Level Up could be mapped against engagement markers to give students a similar view of their own engagement analytics.
Usman used Level Up to create a series of levels for students to progress through on a weekly basis as they progressed through the module. By completing selected activities, students could earn ‘experience points’ (XP) and attain progressive levels or badges. XP activities included watching videos and completing associated quizzes, receiving feedback on practical exercises at lab sessions (which also involved QMplus submissions) and attending lecture sessions. Students could also view a leaderboard to see how their progress through the module compared to that of (anonymised) other students. To make the process more fun and increase its relevance to students, Usman customised the levels to reflect the topics studied each week and incorporate pop-culture references. A colleague designed badges associated with each level.
In his first lecture, and on the module QMplus site, Usman discussed Level Up with students, explaining how they could earn XP, how they could view their progress and how he would be using the information to support them through the semester. At regular points during the semester, he dedicated a few minutes of his lecture to showing the leaderboard and congratulating students who had earned all available badges to date. At the same time, he encouraged students who had not yet attained badges, reminding them that they could engage with the activities and earn badges at any time.
The majority of students embraced the use of Level Up, reporting that they found it motivating and helpful for tracking their progress through the module. A group of students requested that in the last lecture of the semester, all students who had achieved all available badges be invited to the front of the lecture theatre in acknowledgement of their efforts. Formal evaluation is underway but initial student feedback included:
- “Good way of tracking progress and engagement”
- “The most beneficial aspect was gaining XP points through watching the videos and completing the lab exercises. Not only did I gain more motivation, but I was able to learn a lot more about the module through these lab exercises”
Usman, Jo and lab demonstrator Roman Pretty are conducting further research with the students to better understand their experiences and perceptions of Level Up and their suggestions for improvement.
Find out more
To learn more about using Level Up in your module, contact Megan Jones in TELT.
Keep an eye out for the new Learner Engagement Analytics resources Jo has developed through her QM Academy Fellowship – coming to QMplus in September!