Scholarly interest in gamification: a citation network analysis
| Pages | 1438-1452 |
| Published date | 07 October 2014 |
| Date | 07 October 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-07-2014-0208 |
| Author | Keith Harman,Alex Koohang,Joanna Paliszkiewicz |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems |
Scholarly interest in gamification:
a citation network analysis
Keith Harman
Paul S. Dickinson College of Business, Oklahoma Baptist University,
Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA
Alex Koohang
School of Information Technology, Middle Georgia State College,
Macon, Georgia, USA, and
Joanna Paliszkiewicz
Department of Economics, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
Abstract
Purpose – Gamification has been studied in many areas, i.e. marketing, education, training, and
psychology. There has been an increased interest in the topic of gamification among scholars in the
past several years. The purpose of this paper is therefore to use citation network analysis and explore
changes in scholarly interest in the topic of gamification. As a result, four study hypotheses were
developed: H1a: the “other” category publications (books, proceedings, etc.) will have a significantly
larger frequency when compared with “journal” publications; H1b: the trend line of the frequency of
publications will most closely fit the S-curve of Adoption in the adoption of innovations or the spread
of new ideas as postulated by Rogers (2003); H2a: there will be a negative correlation between g raph
density and the number of vertices (publications); and H2b: there will be a positive cor relation between
average geodesic distance (AVGD) and the number of vertices (publications).
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from three searches for all published works
that contained the word “gamification” in the titles of publication (the unit of analysis) from 2010 to
2013. The sampling was conducted via Google Scholar, amazon.com, and the academic library
databases, i.e. EBSCO Search, JStor Scholarly Journal Archive, PsychArticles, and WorldCat. Data
were analyzed using frequency counts and citation netwo rk. NodeXL is a highly structured workbook
that includes multiple worksheets and computational functions necessary to store, represent, and
analyze a network.
Findings – All four hypotheses were supported; the “other” category accounted for a significantly
larger number of publications with the word “gamification” in the title; the trend line of the frequency
of publications will most closely fit the S-curve of Adoption in the adoption of innovations or the
spread of new ideas as postulated by Rogers (2003); there was a negative correlation between graph
density and the number of vertices (publications); and there was a positive correlation between AVGD
and the number of vertices (publications).
Research limitations/implications – It is highly improbable that a “pure” or “random” sample of
publications could be collected because it is highly probable that there exists no known, i.e. identifiable
and verifiable “true” population of wo rks that include gamification in the title.
Practical implications – The study findings have three major implications. The first takes in
scholarly communication and the development of scientific knowledge. The findings imply that
scholarly communication follows patterns similar to the adoption of innovation. The second
implication deals with the topic known as “gamification.” The study findings imply that scholars
believe gamification is worthy of serious study as the network of scholars studying gamification is
increasing. The third implication of our study relates to the methods used to study scholarly
communication. The study findings imply that network analysis can be used to understand how a new
concept can be vetted by the scientific community.
Originality/value – The citation network analysis of this study provided tangible evidence of
how new concepts are vetted, i.e. adopted. Citation network studies thus offer promise for a deeper
understanding of scholarly communication and the adoption of new research topics and fields
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 114 No.9, 2014
pp. 1438-1452
rEmeraldGroup PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-07-2014-0208
1438
IMDS
114,9
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