Gamification, Presence and Awareness (Part 1/4)
It is now time to explore the potential of meaningful gamification towards learning meditation. After having done the first assessment on this topic (Coquillard, 2025), some specific elements became especially significant within this endeavor, including how motivation is approached. After deepening my research, I continued to discover a very limited amount of research and information on the direct correlation of meaningful gamification in my learners’ context. However, when I started to use motivation as a keystone for research towards that relationship, I found a large amount of supportive research between meaningful gamification and the learning context in meditation.
In scientific literature, the terminology to describe the type of meditation in which our learners are involved is called deconstructive meditation, the process of exposing the nature and dynamics of mind itself (Dahl, Lutz & Davidson, 2015). The purpose of this meditation process is to free oneself from a translation of reality made by the mind to clearly reveal that reality without bias.
From a practical point of view, the foundation required for this type of meditation lies in the more commonly researched type of meditation called attentional meditation, that includes focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) (Dahl, Lutz & Davidson, 2015). These are also elements present in mindfulness.
Much research has been done on FA and OM and the main obstacles that block the learning process (Ramírez-Barrantes et al., 2019). It is also a complex issue and to simplify it research show the need to have a balance between too much effort and not enough, between enough motivation to be engaged but not to the point of creating tension and being too goal oriented (Britton et al , 2014).
In terms of more specific real-life examples, a recent study shows how teenagers’ obstacle to meditation is a lack of motivation (Galla, 2024). Students don’t see the reason why they must do it, so they simply will not engage in it. As well as not perceiving the evident potential benefit for it, and on the other hand they don’t connect with the way it is presented to them. In both cases, this is an example of how initial motivation can be an issue.
Another example taken from a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program with adult learners (Yavuz Sercekman, 2024). MBSR uses actively FA and OM types of meditation in a clinical setting which connects perfectly with our learners’ context (Brown et al, 2022). The study explains that despite the positive result of learning mindfulness on adult’s overall health and well-being, the subjects had difficulties in maintaining consistency in their motivation and engagement (Yavuz Sercekman, 2024). This analysis becomes an example of how a lack of sustained motivation can be a problem.
It is difficult to find field experience peer reviewed studies on the ‘excess’ of effort and motivation in terms of hindrance to meditation. There are however multiple articles available from experienced meditation teachers and researchers exposing the issue of being too aggressive in one’s practice, being too goal oriented with no sense of fun nor compassion while meditating (Kabat-Zinn, 2017; Amaro, 2018).
We have now identified three types of obstacles: lack of initial motivation, lack of sustained motivation, and ‘excess’ motivation. The link between gamification and motivation has been explored over the last decade and while there are still controversies, misunderstandings and more studies to be done, research shows that gamification has an impact on learners’ motivation (Li, Hew & Du, 2024; Rivera & Garden, 2021; Alsawaier, 2018). It is now time to evaluate the real impact of gamification on our learners’ motivational issues.
Continue to Gamification, Presence and Awareness (Part 2/4)
References:
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