GAMIFICATED RPG: Using the pedagogical RPG as a gamified activity for teaching Physics

Abstract

Looking for ways to overcome the traditional way of teaching, some teaching tools have gained
relevance in recent decades, such as gamification and educational role-playing games. Gamification
refers to the use of elements found in games in non-game situations and, when applied to
teaching, motivates students through fun and entertaining activities. Pedagogical role-playing
games, on the other hand, are derived from role-playing games, but are geared towards teaching
through shared storytelling involving school content. Through a narrative literature review, we
sought to understand gamification and pedagogical RPG, their contributions to teaching and
implementation difficulties. Due to the similarity of these approaches, the former being a tool
for transposing game elements into classrooms and the latter being a game applied to teaching,
we also sought to verify whether these approaches could be used together in physics teaching
and, through this analysis, to support the proposition of possible ways of carrying out this use
by physics teachers. By understanding the elements of the pedagogical RPG and their possible
transposition into physics activities through gamification, it was possible to propose the union
of these approaches, here called gamified RPG, which presented advantages over the individual
use of each approach, such as greater ease in preparing activities, as well as freedom in choosing
the RPG elements that the teacher intends to relate to the content explained in class. With this,
positive points were observed in the gamified RPG that can contribute to the teaching of physics
in high school, as well as helping the teacher with different ways of exploring the content to be
taught.