Gamification in Education through Stealth Assessments

Abstract

Games play a very important role in promoting incidental learning and help in exploring both the conscious and subconscious processes such as insight of a learner. Digital Game-Based Learning and assessments are now an integral part of educational practices. When designed effectively digital games can take the learners from the stage of improvisation to a meta-reflection where they can apply the gained competencies/skills to real life situations. Increasing penetration of ICT into education and the disruptive educational technologies are making it possible not only to innovate but also to implement more and more exemplar teaching-learning pedagogies and assessment tools. Such innovations will shift the teaching-learning process from a rote learning process to an inclusive and individualized/personalized process. When developed properly, digital games can assess both procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge of the learners. One such technique of using digital games for assessment is stealth assessment (SA). They help in helps in assessing higher order thinking skills of students accurately and efficiently. SA adopts the approach of competency-based learning, where on the basis of performance of learners in the game their competencies are easily identified and are provided further tasks accordingly. The paper also discusses the challenges in development and implementation of SAs. [This paper was published in "Online Journal of Distance Education and e-Learning" v13 n1 p10-15 2025.]