Integrating motivational techniques into learning management systems

Motivation is a key factor in education. However, learning systems typically do not directly consider motivational aspects to increase students’ motivation. While there are a few systems that tapped into this area, they use either one motivational technique that can be applied in different settings or multiple motivational techniques that are then bound to a specific setting (e.g. a specific course/topic). In this paper, we propose the design, implementation and verification of four motivational techniques as well as a tracking mechanism to gather information on how students use the respective techniques. These techniques are system independent and content independent, and can therefore be used in any learning system and for any course. The motivational techniques were integrated into Moodle and verified through case studies. By integrating motivational techniques into learning systems, students can benefit from increased motivation, which again can have a positive impact on their overall performance.