The impact of gamification on teaching and learning Physical Internet: a quasi-experimental study
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-09-2021-0600 |
| Published date | 19 January 2022 |
| Date | 19 January 2022 |
| Pages | 1499-1521 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
| Author | Chao Wang,Jianbo He,Zhaodong Jin,Shenle Pan,Mariam Lafkihi,Xiangtianrui Kong |
The impact of gamification on
teaching and learning
Physical Internet:
a quasi-experimental study
Chao Wang, Jianbo He and Zhaodong Jin
Department of Transportation Economics and Logistics Management,
College of Economics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Shenle Pan and Mariam Lafkihi
Centre de Gestion Scientifique –I3 –UMR CNRS 9217, Mines ParisTech,
Paris, France, and
Xiangtianrui Kong
Department of Transportation Economics and Logistics Management,
College of Economics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Abstract
Purpose–Today’s logistics industry is facing severe challenges since global transportation demand increases
substantially. Carriers are urged to reduce empty loads and CO2 emissions through collaboration.Therefore,
the concept of Physical Internet (PI) came into being. However, PI is still in its infancy. It is difficult to
understand its sophisticated coordination mechanism,which makes learning of the concept more complicated.
Design/methodology/approach –Gamification is an effective approach to help students improve their
learning curve. At the same time, the psychological and behavioral changes in learning will also pose an impact
on learning efficiency. This paper introduces a PI transportation game and designs a set of gamification
teaching experiments. In the experiment, a control group and three experimental groups are set up, and the
experimentwas designed to respond to a plethora of research questions using the methods of T-test, correlation
analysis and regression analysis. Experimental results were analyzed through the method of multivariate
statistics.
Findings –This paper looks for superior pedagogical methods and procedures for students to learn PI while
providing suggestions for PI’s learning among undergraduates. The authors found (1) gamification teaching
will make participants feel more satisfied and master more knowledge points; (2) the scores of logistics testing
have been significantly improved after gamification teaching and (3) flow experience has a significant impact
on game revenue.
Originality/value –This is the first study about the impact of gamification on teaching and learning PI. The
authors apply the methods of T-test, correlation analysis and regression analysis to analyze the collected data.
The paper proves that gamification can help students learn PI and that flow experience can improve the
efficiency of students learning PI.
Keywords Physical Internet, Gamification, Psychology and behavior effects, T-test, Correlation analysis,
Regression analysis
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
According to the forecasts, transportation demand will increase approximately double from
2015 to 2050, and transportation-related energy consumption will increase by 21–25%
compared to 2016. The greenhouse emissions from the transportation sector are protected to
peak between 2025 and 2030 (Khalili et al., 2019). However, traditional logistics transportation
and distribution exists in many problems, such as mismatch between trucks and goods, high
empty reposition ratio, unnecessary movement, low utilization rate of storage facilities, high
environmental pollution, low service quality, etc. (Montreuil, 2011). It is predicted that China’s
Physical
Internet
1499
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0263-5577.htm
Received 29 September 2021
Revised 1 December 2021
Accepted 31 December 2021
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 122 No. 6, 2022
pp. 1499-1521
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-09-2021-0600
carbon emission in the country will peak in 2043, 13 years later than the promised 2030 target
(Chen et al., 2020). In this context, shippers or carriers would want to significantly improve
freight transportati on efficiency (Lai and Cai, 2019). Cooperation between logistics
participants has been recognized as one of the most effective ways to improve sustainable
freight efficiency (Pan et al., 2019). There are two main types of collaborative transportation:
vertical transportation collaboration (VTC) and horizontal transportation collaboration
(HTC). In VTC, it can be carried by different carriers at different stages of transportation. In
HTC, multiple suppliers work together in the same part of the cross-supply chain, possibly
sharing orders and infrastructure. Physical Internet is one of the ways of hybrid collaboration
with both VTC and HTC (Pan et al., 2019).
Physical Internet (PI,
π
) is a new freight transportation and logistics concept that aims to
integrate independent logistics networks into a global, open and interconnected system, and
to revert the huge unsustainability of the current way we transport, handle, store, realize,
supply and use physical objects around the world (Montreuil, 2011). However, compared with
traditional logistics transportation and distribution theory, PI is a new and conceptual term
(Crainic and Montreuil, 2016), many people only know the physical aspects of PI, such as
π
-containers and shared equipment, but the collaboration mechanism behind is still ever-
evolving and, therefore, it is difficult to learn.
Gamification is usually recommended for areas of complex activities to increase user
engagement and motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000). In the past few years, gamification has
developed vigorously in different education fields, but its effects in the learning of PI have
been seldom discussed, especially compared with the traditional logistics teaching mode. The
influence of gamification teaching on the behavior and psychology in the game is less
researched.
The main purpose of our paper is to examine whether gamification teaching can help
students better master the knowledge of PI. Meanwhile, the impact of psychological and
behavioral changes during the game on the learning effect is investigated, such as flow
experience and cognition of time.
To this end, we introduce a transportation game to simulate the situation about cargo
modularization, transfer hubs, bidding strategies and path planning in PI. Then, we compare
it with the traditional PowerPoint-based teaching mode (noted as PPT teaching hereafter) to
show the effect of applying gamification in PI teaching. The effect is specified as to whether
gamification teaching is obviously helpful to students’performance and satisfaction with the
teaching method. A quasi-experiment is thus designed. We divided the experimental subjects
into a control group (noted as CG) using PPT teaching and three experimental control groups
(noted as EGs) using game teaching. Before and after playing the game, students in both EGs
and CG should execute pre-test and post-test. Through the results of these two tests, we
compare and analyze the impact of the two teaching methods on the students’final scores in
PI teaching. Further, the effects of gamification on teaching and learning outcomes are
quantitatively analyzed. All students will fill out a questionnaire in the end. The results show
that, compared to traditional PPT teaching, gamification in teaching can significantly
improve student performance and achieve higher classroom satisfaction.
This remainder of article is arranged as follows. Section 2 presents a literature review. PI
transportation game is introduced in Section 3.Section 4 presents the teaching experiment
design. The investigation of experimental data associated with results analysis is conducted
in Section 5. Finally, in Section 6, conclusions and prospects are presented.
2. Literature review
This section reviews recent related studies from three dimensions: (1) PI, (2) gamification, and
(3) gamification psychology and behavior effects.
IMDS
122,6
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