Palomino et al.

Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18

An ontology for modelling user’ profiles and

activities in gamified education
Paula T. Palomino*, Armando M. Toda, Luiz Rodrigues, Wilk Oliveira, Lennart Nacke and Seiji Isotani

*Correspondence: Abstract
[email protected]
Computing Institute,
Federal University of Alagoas, Gamification studies in the educational domain usually focus on motivating students
Av. Lourival Melo Mota, S/N, to increase their learning performance by enhancing their motivation. Classifications
Tabuleiro do Martins, Maceió, of behavioural profiles are often used for this (referred to as “gamer” or “user
Alagoas 57072-900, Brazil and types”), which support the personalization of students’ experiences. These
Stratford School of Interaction
Design and Business, classifications consider these profiles from gamers’ or non-gamers’ points of view.
University of Waterloo, 200 However, within education research, it is necessary to broadly inspect these
University Avenue West behavioural profiles to create an instructional design based on learners’ intrinsic
Waterloo, ON, Canada drivers and motivations. The relationship between these concepts is subjective,
Full list of author information is
available at the end of the article complex, and difficult to categorize, demanding research to bridge this gap.
Therefore, in this article we present the design and evaluation of an application
ontology that seeks to represent relationships between Jung’s archetypes (e.g., the
Hero, the Outlaw and others) adapted for educational purposes, creating a new
approach for modelling user profiles, a taxonomy of game elements specific for use
in educational contexts, and Bloom’s revised taxonomy to classify learning activities
types. This ontology enables personalized and instructional designs directly related
to the learning activity type for students. We demonstrate that the proposed
ontology can help create better gamification designs to support learning, and we
envision it to be used both to create unplugged gamification strategies and
personalized gamified educational systems.

Keywords: Gamification, Ontology, Design for learning, User types, Personalization

Introduction
Gamification1 is currently used in many fields, such as marketing (Huotari & Hamari,
2012), corporate training (Fitz-Walter et al., 2017; Kapp, 2012) and education (Metwally
et al., 2021), which is our focus for this research. However, the conclusions about its
effectiveness are still not convincing, with positive (Sailer & Homner, 2019) and negative
(Toda, Valle, et al., 2018) outcomes.

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Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 2 of 35

Specially in education, previous studies show that students have different backgrounds
and psychological needs (Oliveira & Bittencourt, 2019; Orji et al., 2017), being motivated
each in their way, reacting and experiencing the same educational system in distinct ways
(Toda, Pereira, et al., 2020). However, there is a lack of research connecting learning
objectives, instructional design and how gamification can be inserted in this context to
enhance the user experience and, consequently, address the issue of personal differences
and equity (Bovermann & Bastiaens, 2020; Klock et al., 2020; Rodrigues, Toda, Palomino,
et al., 2020).
In gamification, this is especially important because depending on the gameful
experience2 provided to the user, according to their characteristics and preferences, the
experience can be felt as very positive or not. Therefore, knowing and designing the
gamification strategy based on these profiles may improve their overall experience
(Rodrigues, Palomino, et al., 2021). However, on the other hand, if the student’s gameful
experience is negative, it might harm their learning (Toda, Valle, et al., 2018). Also, there
is the matter that if the gameful experience is too engaging but not connected to the learning
content, it might divert the student’s attention from learning itself (Bai et al., 2020;
Rodrigues, Toda, et al., 2022). In the case of this research, the focus is on improving
learning content with gamification, not personalizing the learning content (e.g., dealing
with the subject, complexity and so on).
One of the current approaches aiming to mitigate this problem is to personalize gamified
educational systems (GES) to the students’ experience (Oliveira & Bittencourt, 2019).
Different from personalized learning, personalized gamification focuses on adjusting the
game-like elements to the user (in this case, students) needs. A practical example of
personalized learning can be seen in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) where the system
suggests the content based on the students’ profiles (Dermeval, Lima, et al., 2019), while
on personalized gamification, a system can provide the most suitable game elements based
on the students’ behavioural profile. In this sense, the student may receive both
personalized experiences that can improve their learning. One way to personalize
gamification is to model the student’s behavioural profiles into groups based on gamer (or
player) types, assuming that gamification, as a concept that derives from games, can benefit
from these specific profiles (Oliveira et al., 2018).
For personalized gamification, it is the process of tailoring the gamification design to suit
different users’ characteristics and preferences. For example, one user might be more prone
to competitive tasks while another might prefer cooperative ones. If we present competitive
strategies to a user that does not see value in this experience instead of motivating them,
the effect would be the opposite. Hence, personalized gamification will be different to each
individual, while standard gamification will provide the same experience for everyone.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 3 of 35

This line of reasoning has brought great advances to studies in this field (Hallifax, Serna,
Marty, Lavouè, et al., 2019; Tuunanen & Hamari, 2012) and has given rise to some widely
used classifications, such as Bartle’s Player Types (Bartle, 1996), BrainHex (Nacke et al.,
2014) which was recently superseded by the five-player traits model (Tondello, Arrambide,
et al., 2019), and specifically developed for gamification and the Hexad user types model
(Tondello, 2016). However, in the field of education, not all students fit a profile based on
gamer (or non-gamer) characteristics, and the breadth of the target audience for a GES is
much broader (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, & Isotani, 2019). This issue is
reinforced when considering that not all people play games but everyone has used a
gamified application at least once (Toda, Pereira, et al., 2020) (e.g., Duolingo3, Google
Maps4 and/or Trip Advisor5). These profiles are neither adapted to education nor consider
the activity at hand when interacting with the gamified system (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira,
Rodrigues, & Isotani, 2019; Rodrigues, Oliveira, et al., 2019).
Gamification in education instructional design needs to consider two conditions:
gamification itself and the learning process. As such, the domain deals with another
complexity layer because, besides personalization, the design needs to consider the
learning content and how each game element can impact the student’s performance (Bai et
al., 2020; Rodrigues, Toda, et al., 2022). Therefore, it is necessary to have a knowledge
model that links and organizes all these aspects to facilitate the design process.
To address the issue of personalization for education, a recent study proposed an
approach to model user types (in this case, the students) based on Jung’s 12 archetypes
(Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, & Isotani, 2019), which are considered by the
literature as broad representations of human natures and desires (Jung, 2014), having also
been used in several fields such as psychology (Jung, 2014), marketing (Xara-Brasil,
Miadaira Hamza, & Marquina, 2018), and education (Mezirow, 2000). This study created
the approach based on the concepts related to Jung’s archetypes and their relationships with
the three levels of significance described by Pierce’s Semiotic Triad (i.e., firstness,
secondness and thirdness) (Peirce, 1991), thus mapping the archetypes’ characteristics to
the stages of human perception and attribution of meaning.
Jung’s classification was chosen because it identifies behavioural and psychological
characteristics such as intrinsic motivation, expectations and wishes, categorizing them
with a sufficient objectivity level to create instructional designs focused on these aspects.
When using this approach for educational purposes, it is possible to categorize both
psychological and motivational aspects within the same group, facilitating the development
of the gamification design. Besides, Jung’s archetypes are not absolute, considering that
these needs and characteristics can change according to the person’s context and moment
(Jung, 2014). When using this approach to classify behavioural profiles, it is possible, from
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 4 of 35

a computational point of view, to devise a fluid approach, which recognizes changes in

context and user preferences, adapting the system to the archetype of the moment.
Finally, although there are several frameworks and guidelines developed to support the
planning and implementation of gamification (Dichev & Dicheva, 2017; Mora et al., 2017),
which are vital to providing systematic steps to support the gamification design, there are
few frameworks focused on the education domain (Mora et al., 2017; Toda, Oliveira, et al.,
2018). Alongside this, most of these frameworks focus on providing a one-fits-all
gamification approach containing specific game elements in specific contexts (Mora et al.,
2017; Oliveira et al., 2018) and use structural game elements, such as the PBL triad (Points,
Badges and Leaderboards). Furthermore, there are few studies considering content-based
frameworks that work with subjective game elements such as narrative, storytelling, and
sensation (Kapp, 2012; Mora et al., 2017), which are essential elements when concerning
the educational domain (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Cristea, & Isotani, 2019).
In the case of this research, the focus is on improving learning content with gamification,
not personalizing the learning content (e.g., dealing with the subject, complexity and so
on). Therefore, this study seeks to address the following research questions:
RQ1: How can we connect the concepts related to Jung’s intrinsic motivations of
archetypes to pedagogical aspects?
RQ2: What is the knowledge representation that would serve as the basis for the
development of a content gamification framework for educational purposes?
We chose to deepen Palomino’s approach (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, &
Isotani, 2019)—because of the complexity and subjectivity of the concepts and terms
involved in this study—by creating a lightweight ontology (i.e., a model representation of
concepts and their relationships (Mizoguchi, 2003)) and then its development in OWL, that
is a semantic web language designed to represent rich and complex knowledge models
(Isotani & Bittencourt, 2015). In addition to providing a visual representation of knowledge
that can be understood and used by non-computer specialists (such as teachers, for
example), this ontology also provides a model of knowledge representation that can be
used in the development of intelligent semantic systems (Noy & McGuinness, 2004; Isotani
& Bittencourt, 2015). We evaluated this ontology using FOCA, which is a methodology
for assessing ontologies, based on a correspondence between the roles of knowledge
representation with the main quality criteria for ontology assessment (Bandeira et al., 2016).
As for the instructional design of the learning activity type (LAT) and content that should
be presented to the student to facilitate and guide the learning process, based on their user
types, we choose to work with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to categorize and organize the
LAT and its contents (Krathwohl, 2002).
Therefore, we summarize our contributions as:
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• Presenting a lightweight gamification ontology developed from a semantic

perspective that designers and teachers can use to support the personalized
instructional design of gamified classes;
• Providing a knowledge representation of the domain “gamification applied to
education” that could be used to implement several different gamification strategies
further;
• Explaining and clarifying subjective concepts of complex semantic mapping;
• Providing an OWL ontology that can be used to create gamified educational systems
(GES).
In the following sections, we explain the theoretical background and related works to our
research, describe the methods used on this study, the results and evaluation of the ontology,
followed by a discussion of our findings, limitations, future works and final remarks.

Background and related work

This section will detail the topics covered in this study and works related to this research.

Game elements
One of the primary purposes of gamification is to engage and motivate, to improve or to
create the desired behaviour in training and teaching processes (Kapp, 2012; Zichermann
& Cunningham, 2011), and to improve the user experience (Deterding et al., 2013; Huotari
& Hamari, 2012; Nacke, 2017). When comparing traditional teaching methods with
gamified teaching ones, there are some parallel concepts, such as grades, groups and
degrees, with game elements such as points, levels and achievements (Smith-Robbins,
2011). However, despite this similarity, traditional (face-to-face or virtual) teaching often
does not bring the necessary motivation to cause the student to become involved with it,
which is one of the leading causes of school dropouts (Oliveira et al., 2015).
Gamification bases its strategies on using the game elements, and there are many
different classifications for them. Dignan et al. (2011) classified 19 concepts found in
games; studies by Francisco-Aparicio et al. (2013) classify these elements according to
Pink’s motivational pillars (Pink, 2011) and Tondello et al. (2017) has been working on
this classification for several years, and their most recent research shows 59 elements.
However, these classifications do not consider that, in the case of educational environments,
in addition to providing the gameful aspect of the elements, it is necessary to maintain the
student’s focus on learning because they do not provide guidance on how to connect game
elements and educational contents (Bai et al., 2020) Besides, there are numerous factors
that affect one’s experience with gamified systems, and existing resources for the
educational domain almost never consider them simultaneously (Rodrigues, Pereira, et al.,
2022).
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Moreover, more generic gamification approaches do not consider aspects of the learning
or are too abstract to be used in educational contexts; one example is the statement that
several frameworks use that “this should be fun” without defining fun or how to measure
it. In educational contexts, learning objectives and metrics and several other factors related
to teaching must be considered, which are not covered by generic approaches (Mora et al.,
2015).
A recent study considered both aspects to create a new taxonomy, specifically for use in
educational contexts. This taxonomy was created and validated by experts in the field of
gamification and games (Toda, Oliveira, et al., 2019). It was used to extract data on the
relationship between the use of these elements in sets—through ARM techniques
(Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, Cristea, et al., 2019), as well as in the creation of
GES (Toda, Palomino, Oliveira, et al., 2019)—with positive results. It contains 21 game
elements grouped into five dimensions (performance, ecological, social, personal and
fictional), as can be shown in Figure 1.

Fig. 1 Taxonomy of Gamification Elements for Educational Environments (TGEEE)

(Toda, Klock, et al., 2019)
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 7 of 35

These dimensions facilitate understanding each game element’s main area and can be
better related to educational tasks in gamified design. Our present study uses the TGEEE
taxonomy as its main pillars, relating the 21 game elements and five dimensions to user
types profiles.

Behavioural profiles
Recent research has demonstrated that personalized gamification tends to achieve positive
effects towards students’ learning. However, a poor gamified design associated with that
personalization might hinder students’ learning rather than supporting them (e.g., where
they want to play a gamified educational system instead of interacting with the learning
tasks (Snow et al., 2015)).
System personalization aims to maximize the importance of these systems to their users,
providing experiences more suited to their expectations and needs, based mainly on their
cultural and demographic characteristics (Liu et al., 2017), being widely applied and
studied in gamified systems (Klock et al., 2020; Rodrigues, Toda, Palomino, et al., 2020).
Previous empirical research has already shown the importance of personalized
gamification. Applying the same gamification strategies might have different outcomes for
different people (Rodrigues, Toda, Oliveira, et al., 2020; Van Roy & Zaman, 2018). More
recent studies demonstrated that personalized gamification tends to more positive results
towards learning efficiency and students’ motivation instead of a one-size-fits-all
gamification (which is a type of non-personalized gamification) (Lopez & Tucker, 2021;
Rodrigues, Palomino, et al., 2021).
One of the most widespread practices is the adaptation of these system’s designs based
on users’ behavioural profiles, offering a particular set of game elements for certain
gamer/player/user types groups (Hallifax, Serna, Marty, & Lavouè, 2019; Orji et al., 2018).
Among the studies related to personalized systems using the gamer/user type approach,
we can highlight some studies, like Yee’s (2016), who identified the correlation between
personality traits and motivations to play (based on observations made of MMORPG
players (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games)) (Yee, 2016); the deprecated
Bartle model, which was created upon observations of behaviour characteristics of Multi-
User Dungeon (RPG) players (Bartle, 1996); Hexad, which was proposed explicitly for use
in gamification research and relates the concepts of Bartle’s model with Self-Determination
Theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000), the Big Five Personality Traits model (Digman, 1990)
and game experience design (Marczewski, 2015; Tondello et al., 2016) and BrainHex,
whose also deprecated model was based on neurobiological discoveries that relate the
behavioural characteristics of players to elements of the nervous system (Nacke et al., 2014)
and was recently superseded by the five-player traits model (Tondello, Arrambide, et al.,
2019) after re-analysis of the original data. The terms gamer or player types, used by Yee’s,
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 8 of 35

Bartle and BrainHex models, categorize the user into gamer profiles. The term user type,
from Hexad, takes into consideration the users willingly wanting to play and the ones not
willing to play (Marczewski, 2015; Tondello et al., 2016).
The research mentioned above concerns the classification based on player preferences
(or non-player preferences), invariably classifying the audience in terms of their
characteristics as gamers. However, regarding the education domain, it is believed that a
classification based on these aspects narrow the understanding of the personality aspects
and—consequently—the personalization options regarding the learning content presented.
For this reason, recent research (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, & Isotani, 2019) has
developed a new approach to this classification, based on Jung’s 12 archetypes, as shown
in the Table 1.

Table 1 Jung’s archetypes as “user types”. Adapted from Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, and
Isotani (2019)

Archetype Intrinsic Motivation Group Characteristics Objectives

The Innocent Spiritual Journey freedom, happiness and aim to do things right
naivety and fear doing things
wrong
The Sage Spiritual Journey wisdom, intelligence and aim to find the truth and
meticulous fear being misled
The Explorer Spiritual Journey autonomy, ambition and aim to experience a
inner emptiness fulfilling life and fears
conformity
The Outlaw Leave a Mark outrage, idealism, radical aim to overturn what is
freedom not working and fears
being powerless
The Magician Leave a Mark make things happen, aim to understand the
manipulation, laws of the universe and
determination fear negative
consequences
The Hero Leave a Mark competence, courage aim to expert mastery in
and arrogance a way that improves the
world and fear weakness
The Lover Connect to Others passion, gratitude, aim to be in a good
commitment and weak relationship and fear
identity being alone or unwanted
The Jester Connect to Others joy, frivolity, playfulness aim to have a great time
and fear being bored
The Everyman Connect to Others realism, empathy and aim to belong and fear to
lack of pretense be left out
The Caregiver Provide Structure compassion, generosity aim to help others and
and martyrdom fear ingratitude and
selfishness
The Ruler Provide Structure responsibility, leadership aim to create a
and authoritarianism prosperous community
and fear chaos
The Creator Provide Structure creativity, imagination aim to realize a vision
and perfectionism and fear mediocre
execution
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Jung’s archetypes are not absolute, changing according to the context and life experiences
of a person (Jung, 2014). Palomino’s modelling of student behaviour profiles considers the
same reasoning, assuming that students’ personalities, motivations and behaviours are not
predefined as only one group. Each archetype needs to be related to specific educational
tasks and content presentation from the system perspective.
Our study presents an ontology that delimits the knowledge space of this classification,
relating it to educational aspects such as learning objectives and activities types (LATs)
(Krathwohl, 2002), for use in future works for the creation of gamified instructional designs
and systems.
This research considers yet another theory regarding personality traits and deepens
Palomino’s study by correlating Jung’s archetypes to the Big Five Personality Traits model
(also known as the OCEAN model), used in the last decades with most personality tests,
which all have recurring themes classified by the Big Five approach (McCrae & Costa,
1987). While personality is a set of characteristics that represents a relatively stable pattern
of behaviour in response to people’s own experiences (Jung, 2014), traits distinguish
personal characteristics that make up an individual’s unique personality (McCrae & Costa,
1987).

Learning Objectives and Learning Activities Types (LATs)

Bloom’s original research, published in 1956, presented a framework to be used by teachers
to support the instructional design of their classes (Bloom, 1956). In 2001 this framework
was revised, focusing on a more dynamic iteration (Krathwohl, 2002).
In this study, we use Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002), composed of the
statement of a learning objective, where the verb (and the action associated with) refers to
the cognitive process, and the object (usually a noun) refers to the knowledge expected the
students to acquire. As such, the authors refer to two dimensions: the cognitive process one,
categorized in six hierarchical stages (i.e., Remembering, Understanding, Applying,
Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating); and the Knowledge Dimension, categorized in factual,
conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive, as shown in the examples from Table 2.
Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives was already used in gamification, matching the
learning activities gamification designs to a cognitive taxonomy (Baldeón et al., 2016) and
is being currently used to map which gamification design users consider the most suitable
to help them in performing a particular learning activity (Rodrigues, Toda, et al., 2022).
We believe this taxonomy greatly helps in mapping the learning objectives and the learning
activities types, making it possible to relate them semantically to Jung’s archetypes.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 10 of 35

Table 2 Revised Bloom’s taxonomy learning objectives example (Krathwohl, 2002)

Cognitive Knowledge Dimension

Process
Dimension
Factual Conceptual Procedural Meta-cognitive
The basis that The relationships How to apply Knowledge in
the student between the basic knowledge, its broadest
must have knowledge that methods, skills, form,
acquired with allows them to and techniques. awareness of
a subject. make sense the existence of
together. this knowledge.

Remembering: List Recognize Recall Identify

Relevant
knowledge from
long-term
memory

Understanding: Summarize Classify Clarify Predict

Construction of
meaning
through
instructional
messages.

Applying: Respond Provide Carry out Use

Application of a
procedure in a
given situation.

Analyzing: Select Differentiate Integrate Deconstruct

Distinguish
information
between
different parts.

Evaluating: Select Determine Judge Reflect

Judging based
on criteria and
standards.

Creating: Generate Assemble Design Create

Join or organize
elements in a
new form,
pattern, or
coherent
structure.

Ontologies and gamification

Concerning ontologies in gamification domain, we can mention three recent works, namely
the OntoGamif (Bouzidi et al., 2018), OntoGaCLeS (Chalco & Isotani, 2019) and GaTO
(Dermeval, Albuquerque, et al., 2019) ontologies. The first work deals with a modular
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 11 of 35

ontology for the gamification domain, covering the users, organizational structures, ethical
issues, and psychological factors. They are organized as seven linked modular
sub-ontologies that can also be used independently to support the work of gamification
designers implementing personalized gamified solutions (Bouzidi et al., 2018). This
ontology is also linked to the upper-level domain ontology SUMO6. The second ontology
formalizes the representation of gamification concepts and explains how they affect
motivation in collaborative learning contexts (Chalco & Isotani, 2019). The third ontology
connects concepts of gamification with concepts of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS),
allowing automated reasoning to enable interoperability and the creation of awareness
about theories and good practices for the designers of gamified ITS (Dermeval,
Albuquerque, et al., 2019).
Although the last two ontologies deal specifically with gamification in education, they
do not address the issue of personalization, which is the main focus of this study.
Therefore, we developed an ontology for gamification applied to education that covers
the definition of the users’ type and the game elements that can be used in a gamified design
to improve the users’ experience, considering their learning objectives and presenting
learning activities according to their preferences and learning performance, to keep the
student engaged and focused on learning.

Study
This research’s goal is to provide an ontology to represent relationships between the use of
Bloom’s Taxonomy and the personalization of gamified designs through Jung’s archetypes
and game elements to create educational strategies supported by a gamification taxonomy
for education. To develop that ontology, we used the Simple Knowledge-Engineering
Methodology (Ontology 101) (Noy & McGuinness, 2004), which consists of an iterative
approach to ontology development, starting with a rough sketch of the ontology and then
revising and refining it, filling in the details. We opted for this methodology because it is
an agile method, widely accepted by the academic community (Gobin, 2014; Isotani &
Bittencourt, 2015).
We also opted to create an ontology because of its practical use in intelligent semantic
systems and to formalize the knowledge in those three fields. The complete study procedure
can be seen in Figure 2.
To conduct this study, we related three main concepts: i) Jung’s Archetypes; ii)
Gamification Taxonomy for Educational Purposes (TGEEE) and iii) Bloom’s Revised
Taxonomy; mapped their parts and then specified their attributes and how they could be
instantiated. The conceptual map of the lightweight ontology and its complete OWL
version can be seen in the supplemental material 7.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 12 of 35

Fig. 2 Study procedure

First, we used the TGEEE, containing 21 game elements that were mapped and
distributed in five-game dimensions (ecological, social, personal, fictional and
performance) (Toda, Klock, et al., 2019). Second, these dimensions were semantically
instantiated to Jung’s 12 archetypes (also distributed into four motivational groups), which
were then mapped and related to parts and attribute through semiotics techniques (Peirce,
1991; Santaella, 2017). Finally, we used the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy to
instantiate the archetypes to the pedagogical aspects through its cognitive and knowledge
dimensions. The six hierarchical learning objectives were related to learning activities
types, and the four dimensions of knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002). From then on, we related
some digital tools as suggestions for the applicability of the instructional designs (Churches,
2010).
The primary purpose of this ontology is to enable the reuse of the domain knowledge and
make the domain assumptions explicit. As such, this ontology should help other
instructional designers and teachers reuse these instances, supporting their classes and
providing support for future works developing frameworks based on these relationships.
For the final OWL ontology, we also related the 12 Jung’s archetypes to the Big Five
Personality Trait model (Digman, 1990). Also, the way we built the ontology allows the
expansion of related concepts in the future, adding other gamers/user types approaches (not
built initially with educational focus), such as Hexad and other gamification taxonomies,
relating them to the educational aspect through Bloom’s Taxonomy and other instructional
designs. Therefore, this work can stagger to become an ontology for gamification applied
to education, providing several different ways to create these strategies.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 13 of 35

Ontology design
The seven iterative steps necessary to build an ontology, according to the Simple
Knowledge-Engineering Methodology (Noy & McGuinness, 2004) are:
Determine Scope: In this step, we established the domain of interest, the main goal and
specific objectives of the ontology, the scope and the competency questions, as follows:
The domain of interest is the creation of a Gamification Framework applied to
Educational Systems; the goal is to develop a knowledge model that helps education
specialists to understand how to use Jung’s 12 Archetypes to personalize GES, based on
the TGEEE and Bloom’s Taxonomy for Learning Objectives. The specific objectives are
to provide a semantic basis in which to develop personalized gamification strategies for
education; to derive and build a lightweight ontology (as in abstract form) for review
purposes and to be shared with non-experts; to develop its OWL version that can be used
to develop GES and to validate the ontology using FOCA methodology. For the scope, we
defined the semantic relationship between the characteristics related to the archetypes,
gamification educational Taxonomy and Bloom’s revised taxonomy and as competency
questions:
• What characteristics belong to each archetype, and how can they be related to the
Big Five Personality Model?
• What game element dimension can be related to each archetype motivation group?
• How are these characteristics related to Learning Objectives and Learning Activities
Types?
• How can these characteristics be used for personalizing educational contexts and
activities?
Consider reuse: For the stage of this study, we are working with our ontology. However,
in future works, we intend to link it to the existing OntoGamif Modular Ontology (Bouzidi
et al., 2018)8.
Enumerate terms: We used requirements elicitation methods to collect and filter
information, as stated on BABOK methodology for business analysis (Brennan et al., 2009).
We enumerated the terms through the brainstorming technique, one of the nine methods
presented in this methodology. We chose this technique because it has a better cost-benefit
than the others and is more suitable for the type of ontology we are creating, based on
innovation and semantic relationships.
Define classes, properties, restrictions and create the instances: These next four steps,
related to the initial structuring and formalization, were done using semantics and semiotic
techniques (Pástor et al., 2018; Peirce, 1991; Santaella, 2017), where we mapped the
concepts into their respective objects and attributes. These steps were executed first by
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 14 of 35

Fig. 3 Modelling Graph template for each archetype relationships in the ontology

creating a conceptual map of the classes and then establishing their properties, restrictions
and instances relating to each other as it can be seen on Figure 3 9.

Ontology evaluation
This section presents the methodology used to evaluate the ontology and the reason behind
such a choice. The task of modelling an ontology is complex and time-consuming and as
such, the worse the quality of the ontology, the lesser its reusability. That is why it is
essential to use a sound methodology for the construction of the ontology, as well as using
a method to validate whether what has been done is within specific quality criteria or not
(Bandeira et al., 2016). Besides, the evaluation process needs to be accessible to domain
experts, who are not always specialists in ontologies. As such, for evaluating the ontology
presented in this paper, we choose to use FOCA methodology (Bandeira et al., 2016),
which takes into account three main principles and presents a step-by-step tutorial on how
to evaluate ontologies for non-specialists:
1. it is based on the Goal, Question, Metric (GQM) approach for empirical evaluations
from Basili (1992);
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 15 of 35

2. it has the goals of the methodologies based on the five roles of knowledge
representation from Davis et al. (1993) and its metrics based on evaluation criteria
proposed by Vrandečić (2009);
3. it considers each evaluation according to the type of the ontology defined by Guarino
(1998).
The FOCA methodology GQM can be seen in Table 3.
The steps for the evaluation can be resumed as such: the evaluator defines the ontology
type and then iteratively performs the GQM approach. After that, the ontology’s quality is
calculated based on the metrics established by the methodology. For this research purpose,
the ontology was evaluated by three domain specialists in gamification applied to education.
Next, we present each step executed to evaluate our ontology.
1. Ontology Type Verification: As an ontology that describes concepts that depend
on a particular domain and is intended for application purposes, all three specialists
defined that its type is type two, an Application ontology, and as such, question 5
from FOCA’s GQM should not be verified.
2. Questions Verification: In this step, all of the 13 questions, except question 5, were
answered by the evaluators, establishing a grade for each question as seen on Table
4.

Table 3 The FOCA methodology GQM (Bandeira et al., 2016)

Goal Question Metric

1. Check if the Q1. Were the competency questions defined? 1. Completeness
ontology complies Q2. Were the competency questions answered? 1. Completeness
with Substitute. Q3. Did the ontology reuse other ontologies? 2. Adaptability

2. Check if the Q4. Did the ontology impose a minimal ontological 3. Conciseness
ontology complies commitment?
Ontological Q5. Did the ontology impose a maximum ontological 3. Conciseness
Commitments. commitment?
Q6. Are the ontology properties coherent with the 4. Consistency
domain?

3. Check if the Q7. Are there contradictory axioms? 4. Consistency

ontology complies Q8. Are there redundant axioms? 3. Conciseness
with Intelligent
Reasoning.
4. Check if the Q9. Did the reasoner bring modelling errors? 5. Computational
ontology complies efficiency
Efficient Q10. Did the reasoner perform quickly? 5. Computational
Computation. efficiency

5. Check if the Q11. Is the documentation consistent with 6. Clarity

ontology complies modelling?
with Human Q12. Were the concepts well written? 6. Clarity
Expression. Q13. Are there annotations in the ontology that show 6. Clarity
the definitions of the concepts?
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 16 of 35

Table 4 GQM Grading

G. Q. SQs. Grade Question Grade Goal Grade Mean

Mean
E1 E2 E3 E1 E2 E3 E1 E2 E3
1 Q1 SQ1.1 100 100 100
1 SQ1.2 100 100 100 100 100 100
1 SQ1.3 100 100 100 66,667 66,667 66,667
1 Q2 100 100 100 100 100 100
1 Q3 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Q4 100 75 100 100 75 100
100 87,5 100
2 Q6 100 100 100 100 100 100
3 Q7 75 75 100 75 75 100
87,5 75 100
3 Q8 100 75 100 100 75 100
4 Q9 100 100 100 100 100 100
100 100 100
4 Q10 100 100 100 100 100 100
5 Q11 SQ11.1 100 100 100
75 100 87,5
5 SQ11.2 50 100 75
58,333 91,666 58,333
5 Q12 100 100 100 100 100 100
5 Q13 0 75 0 0 75 0
G. = Goal; Q. = Question; SQs. = Sub Questions; E = Evaluator.

3. Quality Verification: In this step, the quality of the ontology was validated in two
ways: total quality and partial quality in the roles of Substitute, Ontological
Commitments, Intelligent Reasoning, Computational Efficiency and Human
Expression, as seen on Table 5. These grades are a weighted linear combination of
the different goals and calculated according to the existing formula in FOCA
methodology (Bandeira et al., 2016).
Although the methodology provides metrics for the attribution of grades for Human
Expression, this goal does not have variables for calculation input in the formula.
According to the authors, there are two reasons for this: the ontological reason, which
assumes that human expression is embedded in other roles, and the mathematical reason,
since they obtained the formula after carrying out an experiment that validated the
methodology (Bandeira et al., 2016).

Results
This section details the ontology classes, object properties, data properties and instances,
and the evaluation results.

Table 5 Ontology Quality Evaluation Final Grades

E Total Quality Substitute Ontological Intelligent Computational Human

Commitments Reasoning Efficiency Expression
E1 0.998 0.826 0.826 0.607 0.826 0.391
E2 0.997 0.826 0.787 0.576 0.826 0.391
E3 0.998 0.826 0.826 0.636 0.826 0.391
E = Evaluator.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 17 of 35

The ontology developed and presented in this article is an Application Ontology that
describes concepts depending on a particular domain or task, often consisting of
specializations of a domain or top-level ontology (Bandeira et al., 2016). In this study, the
general domain of this application ontology is education, and our particular task is to
personalize gamification designs for educational purposes.
Furthermore, this is a knowledge modelling of a specific way of personalizing
gamification, dealing with behavioural profiles, the educational context, and its content.
As such, our work can be linked to existing ontologies on the field of gamification (such
as OntoGamif (Bouzidi et al., 2018)) and education.
There are three different cores connected into this modelling process: i) Jung’s approach
to personalize gamified educational environments (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues,
& Isotani, 2019); ii) TGEEE (Toda, Klock, et al., 2019) and iii) Bloom’s Revised
Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002). The ontology’s classes are the courses that are to be taught,
the lecturer and the student as shown on Figure 4.
The object properties describe the relationships between two or more classes, and as such,
for this modelling are the actions the actors can execute, such as ‘teach’ and ‘study.’ Data
properties describe the relationships between instances, individuals or other data properties.
In our ontology, they are the core of our model, relating Jung’s 12 archetypes and which
motivational group they belong to (i.e., as the search for a Spiritual Journey, the need to
leave a mark in the world, the necessity of connecting to other people and providing
structure); what characteristics are related to them (what people from these archetypes seek,
value, and how they behave); what game dimensions from TGEEE taxonomy (i.e., the
ecological, social, personal, fictional, and performance dimensions) they are more
susceptible to, and how Bloom’s revised taxonomy knowledge and cognitive dimensions

Fig. 4 Classes and subclasses from the ontology

Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 18 of 35

can be instantiated to each archetype in a class instrumental design or to personalize a GES,

for example.
These attributes have their sub-properties described as the characteristics of the archetype
(the concepts used in this ontology are the ones extracted from Palomino, Toda, Oliveira,
et al.’s (2019) study, based on semiotic mapping); which of the Big Five Personality Model
they are related and each of the individual game element; each LAT related to the learning
objectives and the knowledge dimensions (the verbs and digital tools examples used in this
mapping are based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy instances extracted from Krathwohl
(2002) and Churches (2010)). The full OWL version can be seen in the supplemental
material10. Next, we present detailed results based on the specific objectives of this
ontology.

What characteristics belong to each archetype and how can they be related to
the Big Five Personality Model?
The relationship between the archetypes and the Big Five Personality Model can be seen
at Table 6.
Our ontology indicates that archetypes The Everyman, The Jester, The Lover, The Hero,
The Magician, The Caregiver, The Creator, The Explorer, The Innocent, and The Sage, are
more prone to the Agreeableness trait, reflecting individual differences in general concern
for social harmony, which is measured in a scale, the personality being more agreeable or
disagreeable. From the learning perspective, these archetypes reflect people who like social
interaction and group activities. The archetypes The Everyman, The Lover, The Hero, The
Magician, The Outlaw, The Caregiver, The Creator, The Ruler, The Explorer, The Innocent,
and The Sage are related to the Conscientiousness trait, being a tendency to display self-
discipline, act dutifully, and strive for achievement against measures or outside
expectations. These students need challenge and pressure to measure their performance and
have personal goals.
The Emotional Stability trait refers to a person’s ability to remain stable and balanced,
and on the other side of the scale, this transforms to neuroticism. The archetypes related to
this trait are The Everyman, The Jester, The Lover, The Hero, The Magician, The Outlaw,
The Caregiver, The Creator, The Ruler, The Explorer, The Innocent, and The Sage. From
a learning perspective, this is a trait related to balancing the experience. Tasks should have
a good challenge level but not too much for the student to get frustrated. In addition, the
learning environment should be an affective and safe place so the user can focus on learning.
The Extraversion trait is defined by pronounced engagement with the external world, and
the archetypes more prone to it are The Everyman, The Jester, The Lover, The Hero, The
Magician, The Outlaw, The Caregiver, The Creator, The Ruler, The Explorer, The Innocent,
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 19 of 35

Table 6 Relationship between Jung’s Archetypes, Palomino’s semantic mapping of archetypal traits
and the OCEAN model traits

Archetype Archetypal traits OCEAN traits

The Everyman Empathy Agreeableness
Realism Conscientiousness
Lack of Pretense Emotional Stability
Belonging Extraversion
The Jester Joy Agreeableness
Pleasure Emotional Stability
Frivolity Extraversion
Playfulness Openness to Experience
The Lover Weak Identity Agreeableness
Intimacy Conscientiousness
Gratitude Emotional Stability
Commitment Extraversion
Passion Openness to Experience
The Hero Mastery Agreeableness
Competence Conscientiousness
Arrogance Emotional Stability
Courage Extraversion
Openness to Experience
The Magician Manipulation Agreeableness
Determination Conscientiousness
Power Emotional Stability
Extraversion
Openness to Experience
The Outlaw Freedom Conscientiousness
Liberation Emotional Stability
Idealism Extraversion
Outrageousness Openness to Experience
The Caregiver Service Agreeableness
Martyrdom Conscientiousness
Generosity Emotional Stability
Compassion Extraversion
The Creator Imagination Agreeableness
Creativity Conscientiousness
Innovation Emotional Stability
Perfectionism Extraversion
Openness to Experience
The Ruler Authoritarianism Conscientiousness
Leadership Emotional Stability
Responsibility Extraversion
Openness to Experience
The Explorer Autonomy Agreeableness
Inner Emptiness Conscientiousness
Ambition Emotional Stability
Freedom Extraversion
Openness to Experience
The Innocent Safety Agreeableness
Freedom Conscientiousness
Happiness Emotional Stability
Naiveness Extraversion
Openness to Experience
The Sage Meticulous Agreeableness
Intelligence Conscientiousness
Knowledge Emotional Stability
Wisdom Extraversion
Openness to Experience
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 20 of 35

and The Sage. Students with this trait need places to talk and discuss with other colleagues,
such as forums, chats and discussion groups.
Finally, the archetypes related to the Openness to Experience trait are The Jester, The
Lover, The Hero, The Magician, The Outlaw, The Creator, The Ruler, The Explorer, The
Innocent, and The Sage, being more prone to a general appreciation for art, emotion,
adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. From a learning
perspective, people with this trait can engage in complementary content and new
challenges.

What game element dimension can be related to each archetype motivation

group?
In our ontology, we analyzed and mapped what motivation group would be more prone to
what game element dimension, from Toda’s TGEEE’s taxonomy (Toda, Klock, et al.,
2019), using requirements elicitation methods such as brainstorming techniques (Brennan
et al., 2009). These relationships can be seen in Figure 5.
The 12 archetypes are divided into four motivational groups, or from Jung’s perspective,
the archetype’s greatest mission or universal human motivation (Jung, 2014). In
Palomino’s user type approach (Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues, & Isotani, 2019),
they consider these groups as intrinsic motivation ones (i.e., what is a person’s deepest
desire that would motivate them to do something). The first group deals with the necessity
to connect with others (and contains the Everyman, Jester, and Lover). People from this
group long to connect, compare each other with themselves, be part of something, and as
such, can be related to the performance dimension (which contains the elements of
Progression, Level, Point, Stats, and Acknowledgement). The group formed by people who
wish to leave a mark in the world is composed of the archetypes of the Hero, Magician,
and Outlaw, and are people concerned with impressing their peers, being known in a place,
and leaving a name. They are related to the social dimension and the elements of Reputation,
Cooperation, Competition, and Social Pressure. Next, people who wish to provide structure
and meaning to the world, represented by the archetypes of the Caregiver, Creator, and
Ruler, are concerned with the environment surrounding them, how can they control and
make it better, and are related to the ecological dimension and the game elements of Time
Pressure, Chance, Imposed Choice, Economy, and Rarity. Finally, people who have a
holistic view of life, who are worried about their inner journeys and spiritual experiences,
are related to the personal and fictional dimensions as those who work with game elements
related to the self and the context (meaning) of an environment. The fictional dimension
includes the subjective game elements of Narrative and Storytelling, while the personal
dimension contains the elements of Sensation, Objective, Puzzle, Renovation, and Novelty.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 21 of 35

Fig. 5 Relationships between Jung’s motivational groups and TGEEE’s dimensions

Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 22 of 35

How are these characteristics related to Learning Objectives and Learning

Activities Types?
The ontology also related the archetypes to each of the six Bloom’s learning objectives,
learning activities, and their verbs (representing the action) (Krathwohl, 2002; Churches,
2010) that would be more suited for each behavioural profile, as it can be seen on Table 7.
These relations were established based on the ones already existing in learning objectives,
the action verbs of Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Churches, 2010; Krathwohl, 2002), and its
cognitive and knowledge dimensions. These relationships were further developed by
stipulating the most plausible verbs to be used with each of the 12 archetypes using
semantics, and semiotic techniques (Pástor et al., 2018; Peirce, 1991; Santaella, 2017).

Table 7 Bloom’s Learning Objectives (LO) and their relation to Learning Activities Types (LATs)
based on Jung’s Archetypes

Archetype LO LAT Archetype LO LAT

Innocent Create Create Everyman Create Assemble
Evaluate Select Evaluate Determine
Analyze Differentiate Analyze Integrate
Apply Use Apply Respond
Understand Classify Understand Clarify
Remember Recognize Remember Identify
Sage Create Design Jester Create Design
Evaluate Reflect Evaluate Judge
Analyze Differentiate Analyze Deconstruct
Apply Respond Apply Carry out
Understand Predict Understand Summarize
Remember List Remember Recognize
Explorer Create Assemble Lover Create Generate
Evaluate Select Evaluate Reflect
Analyze Select Analyze Differentiate
Apply Provide Apply Use
Understand Classify Understand Predict
Remember Identify Remember Recall
Outlaw Create Design Creator Create Create
Evaluate Determine Evaluate Select
Analyze Deconstruct Analyze Deconstruct
Apply Respond Apply Provide
Understand Clarify Understand Classify
Remember List Remember Identify
Magician Create Create Ruler Create Generate
Evaluate Select Evaluate Determine
Analyze Select Analyze Differentiate
Apply Carry out Apply Use
Understand Clarify Understand Classify
Remember Identify Remember List
Hero Create Assemble Caregiver Create Assemble
Evaluate Determine Evaluate Reflect
Analyze Integrate Analyze Integrate
Apply Carry out Apply Provide
Understand Summarize Understand Clarify
Remember Recall Remember Recognize
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 23 of 35

How can these characteristics be used for personalizing educational contexts

and activities?
Our results propose the first guideline that can be used to create a gamified design for
educational strategies relating to Jung’s universal archetypes and personality traits. The
ontology allows different instances, such as relating the learner to their archetype and
drifting from this primary relationship, all personalized gamified strategies. Most
personalization approaches are based on establishing the user/player profile and what game
elements can be used for each profile. Our research goes further by presenting a way of
personalizing the learning experience from the beginning to the end of the process, dealing
with different levels of abstraction and reasoning when working with Bloom’s taxonomy
as an instructional design framework. Moreover, the ontology can be used in unplugged
scenarios and GES development. While it might be difficult for traditional classrooms to
personalize each student’s experience if there are too many people in the class, instructors
could group students with similar characteristics and offer activities personalized to each
group. Nevertheless, the ontology is more likely to yield its full potential in a GES context
because it allows individualized personalization, regardless of the existence of students
with similar characteristics.

Ontology application
This section presents an example of the application of ontology in a real scenario, i.e., an
instance, as it can be seen in Figure 6.
Based on this example, we can detail an instance (as an application of the ontology in a
proposed scenario) such as personalizing an educational task for people from the Creator
archetype. These people yearn to provide structure and are innovative, creative,
imaginative, and perfectionists. They could be asked (i) to identify strategies for retaining
information using searching engines as digital tools (remembering); ii) to classify these
strategies using bullet pointing tools (understanding); iii) to provide these strategies in a
group networking (applying); iv) and to deconstruct one of these strategies using reverse
engineering concepts (analyzing) and v) to select the best option among these concepts
(evaluating) with which vi) they can create a brand new strategy for retaining information
on top of that (creating). The gamification of this instructional design could be: the student
has 30 minutes to identify the strategies and one week to devise a new one (Time Pressure
game element). At this time, they cannot map all world strategies and are subject to the
chance element of what they are going to find through the search engine in a 30 minutes
time limit (Chance game element). They need to choose between these strategies for the
one they will deconstruct (Imposed Choice) and finally propose something new that is rare
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 24 of 35

Fig. 6 Visual representation of the ontology’s instance referring to the Creator archetype

in itself (Rarity element), and that can be distributed with the best cost-benefit to the other
students (Economy element).
This example might be applied to small classes in unplugged contexts, but the teacher
needs first to know their students’ archetypes and then design personalized activities for
each of their class’ archetypes, using assets like paper-based badges, board-based
leaderboards, objectives backlog or progress bar and team-based assignments and so on.
In light of that example, there are three points to be considered when using our ontology.
First, our ontology informs the design of gamified experiences connected to learning
activities to mitigate harmful, undesired effects of gamification applied to education (e.g.,
performance loss and gaming the system (Toda, Valle, et al., 2018)). However, from a
pedagogical point of view, meaningful learning experiences will guide students through
activities ranging from the remember to the create dimensions (Bloom, 1956).
Consequently, while the ontology provides recommendations, it does not indicate one
specific learning activity for a given student. Similarly, it does not establish how to weight
each activity, as our example shows (see Figure 6). Instead, the ontology helps instructors
and designers in connecting gamification designs and learning activities, while allowing
them to design instruction (e.g., which activities and their respective weights) according to
their goals and preferences.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 25 of 35

Second, while this section’s example is limited to one user archetype, our ontology
informs the personalization of gamified designs to the 12 Jung’s archetypes. Specifically,
instructors and designers can find straightforward suggestions on which kind of
gamification is more suitable to each archetype in Figure 5. For instance, the figure shows
that the ontology recommends Personal (e.g., objectives) and Fictional (e.g., narrative)
game elements for Sages. Differently, the ontology suggests Social (e.g., competition)
elements for Outlaws and Ecological (e.g., time pressure) ones for Caregivers. Note that
the suggestions for some archetypes are the same, such as those for Everyman, Jester, and
Lover. Such similarities are based on archetype’s similarities found after thought analyses
relating them to personality traits, learning objectives, learning activity types, and game
elements (see, for instance, Tables 6 and 7). Therefore, by connecting sources relevant for
meaningful, gamified learning experiences, our ontology provides concrete guidance on
how to personalize their gamification design.
Based on that context, the third point concerns practically using the ontology to
personalize gamified experiences. In practice, according to our prior discussion, the
instructor would hold the autonomy to define which learning activities to use, as well as
each one’s weight. Then, they would rely on our ontology’s guidance to connect their
instructional design to the gamification design. In following recommendations from Figure
5, the instructor could offer personalization of the gamification for each student. For
instance, motivating Sages with story-based objectives (fictional and personal elements),
Outlaws with peer-to-peer competition (social elements), and so on. In doing so, the
instructor would be deploying a gamification design personalized to students, the usage
context, and the task at hand. Based on prior research dealing with personalized
gamification, such an approach holds great potential to maximize effectiveness compared
to the one-size-fits-all approach (e.g., Lopez & Tucker, 2021; Rodrigues, Palomino, et al.,
2021). This is important because research shows the one-size-fits-all approach suffers from
different shortcomings, such as performance loss, gaming the system, and jealousy (Bai et
al., 2020; Toda, Valle, et al., 2018). Thus, our ontology represents a valuable, theory-
grounded tool for instructors and designers to explore in practice, expanding prior research
by concentrating information from several relevant sources in a single artifact.

Discussion and limitation

As explained in the previous section, the ontology quality evaluation was done in phases,
and the results demonstrated we have a regular Substitute, mainly because we still did not
connect the ontology to others, reusing their models. However, its ontological
commitments are maximized, meaning the ontology is concise and objective. It has a good
score on Intelligent Reasoning and Human Expression, meaning it has no redundancies and
is well documented. The OWL version had maximum grades in computer efficiency,
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 26 of 35

meaning it is ready to be used in computational tasks (which is one of the long-term

objectives of dealing with GES).
Through this study, we materialized how these concepts are related to each other, that is,
how one archetype is related to its properties, the intrinsic motivation group and is more
susceptible to the game elements of a particular game dimension. , the instrumental design
for this archetype thus must be carried out considering following the six learning objectives
and their respective LATs, represented by verbs related to each of these instances, which
is part of one of the knowledge dimensions. With this model, teachers can design gamified
strategies for their classes and for designers and developers to apply these same strategies
in GES design.
Gamification design with a focus on education has some challenges to be overcome, from
the student’s perspectives, the teacher and the gamified systems. From the student’s
perspective: i) how can we provide a gameful experience that keeps the student engaged,
without losing focus on the learning itself; ii) how to facilitate learning and iii) how to
present the content appropriately for their profile. These challenges are one of the biggest
reasons why gamification in education becomes such a specific area, and general
gamification strategies cannot always solve these problems. For Palomino (Palomino, Toda,
Oliveira, Cristea, & Isotani, 2019), one way to deal with this issue is to work with more
subjective game elements, such as Narrative and Storytelling, to create the context and
reason why the student should remain engaged, but focused on learning (that is, the reason
for engagement needs to come from the learning process itself, thus making the
instructional design of activities to be intrinsically linked to the design of gamification
strategies). For Altmeyer et al. (2021) and Mora et al. (2018), it is necessary to personalize
the strategies, to account for interpersonal differences in the perception of gameful design.
Even so, these user types should not be absolute, as a person will not necessarily fit into a
single type (Tondello, Arrambide, et al., 2019). However, it is not enough to know the
student’s behaviour profiles. It is necessary to present the appropriate content for that
profile. Hallifax, Serna, Marty, and Lavoué (2019) states that there is a lack of studies that
relate the aspects of personalization to educational content or activity. Rodrigues, Toda, et
al.’s (2022) research is one of the most recent studies that follow this path, personalizing
the context and not the user, and according to Klock et al. (2020), it is necessary to consider
several factors simultaneously when personalizing the gameful experience of the students.
From the teacher’s perspective, the challenges lie in: i) how to gamify classes; ii) how to
deal with two initially distinct design processes (gamification design and instructional
design) and iii) how to measure the effectiveness of gamification. Although there is a great
interest on the part of teachers in gamification strategies (Dermeval, Lima, et al., 2019),
some aspects influence its adoption, such as the lack of knowledge and the lack of resources
(Martí-Parreño et al., 2016). Toda, do Carmo, et al. (2018) research design strategies to
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 27 of 35

help teachers gamify their classes and deal with the double design process and recent
studies are using data mining techniques, and association rules to measure gamification
effectiveness in education (Barata & Gama, 2014; Palomino, Toda, Oliveira, Rodrigues,
Cristea, et al., 2019; Toda, Palomino, Rodrigues, et al., 2019).
From the systemic perspective: i) How to provide a meaningful and valuable user
experience and ii) How to adapt the gamification design in real-time. Research in the area
of UX relating it to gamification has emerged in recent years, such as that of Klock et al.
(2019) who developed a user-centred framework taking into account personal, functional,
psychological, temporal, playful, implementable, and evaluative properties and Tondello,
Kappen, et al. (2019), who, concerned with the evaluation of gameful systems, developed
the Gameful Design Heuristics. Other research focuses on real-time adaptive gamification,
such as Böckle et al. (2017), who proposed a design framework for the development of
adaptive gamification applications, and Dermeval et al., who proposed an ontology for
adaptative gamification for educational purposes (Dermeval, Albuquerque, et al., 2019).
This ontology was created aiming to deal with all the challenges presented previously.
From the student’s perspective, the fact that a personalized gamification design can be
created already linked to the different objectives and learning activities types that are more
suited to that profile favours and maintains the engagement during learning. Knowing
which learning objective one wants to achieve and which activities and tools would be
more suitable also facilitates the learning itself. The existence of the archetypes, which are
universal and not absolute (i.e., allowing the change of profile during the process), brings
a personalized experience in real-time. From the teacher’s perspective, the ontology unites
the two design processes in a single framework, thus directly enabling the gamification of
classes, just following the relationships presented. Finally, from a systemic point of view,
the ontology allows one to think of richer user experiences by providing user preferences
clearly and objectively. Also, its computational version allows the creation of intelligent
semantic systems that can switch between the archetypes (and their related contents),
following the user’s own behaviours changes, thus providing adaptive gamification that
respects the student’s emotional state and psychological aspects throughout the learning
process.
Some other important insights generated by this study are: i) the need to execute more
in-depth studies on how to integrate gamification design with instructional design in the
education domain, taking into account the properties and range of domains existing within
the field of education (i.e., the same structure that applies to Math classes cannot be used
for Arts) and ii) from the GES perspective, it is necessary to think about other elements
less used in gamification to improve the user experience (i.e., narrative) (Palomino, Toda,
Oliveira, Cristea, & Isotani, 2019). Thus, we expect that this ontology may, in the future,
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 28 of 35

help both the advancement of other theoretical and applied research, as well as being useful
outside the academy in the context of teaching.
Based on this ontology, for future works, we intend to i) empirically validate the ontology
through long-term experiments in digital courses; ii) expand the ontology range connecting
other instructional designs framework options (such as ADDIE (Branch, 2009) and design
Thinking (Brown & Katz, 2019)), as well as other gamification taxonomies (such as
Marczewski’s Periodic Table (Marczewski, 2015)) and gamer/user types (such as Hexad
(Tondello et al., 2016)) so that it is possible to measure the effectiveness of the strategies
specifically for education in comparison to other general gamification strategies, as well as
to further adapt these well-used approaches to the educational context; and iii) to develop
a content-based gamification framework, whose base is the context and user experience,
and should apply this ontology as a whole.
As limitations of this study, we point out the own concepts’ abstractions and the fact that
the ontology is not yet linked to other ontologies of higher domains. Moreover, we
understand that human nature is extremely rich and complex and, from a psychological
perspective, challenging to categorize into traits. Our intention with this study is not to do
that but to provide guidelines that can be used as suggestions of possible elements and
activities that can be applied to users of certain archetypes. Furthermore, from a
computational point of view, this categorization is necessary so that systems developed
using the ontology as a basis can work adaptively.
Besides, there was an evaluation by experts (using FOCA methodology (Bandeira et al.,
2016)), but there was no application of the ontology in a real learning environment.
In future works, it is necessary to apply it in a classroom or in a GES, for example, to
obtain empirical validation.
Other possible paths are to better specify possible abstractions - such as how design
differentiates from creation semantically and deepening the guidelines on how to use the
same learning activities on different archetypes, for example, prioritizing learning activities
so that designers can give different weights for each activity according to students’
archetype. This line of work is one of the possible evolution paths for ontologies to be
expanded and deepened, embracing more different definitions and concepts and adding
different views to explain its application domain (Mizoguchi, 2003).

Final remarks
This study presented, for the first time, an application ontology that connects a
classification of user profiles to a taxonomy of game elements focused on the educational
scope and related these concepts to a learning taxonomy. Considering the importance of a
well-structured gamification design to be successful with its application, and how
frameworks and guidelines are crucial in this process, the creation of this ontology brings
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 29 of 35

an advance being the first that, by the very nature of what it is an ontology, maps in detail
possible instances of applications, allowing the creation of more complete instructional
strategies and designs that consider several different aspects of the personalization of the
learning process.
From our literature review, we believe in having created the first model that encompasses
a behavioural profile mapping the relationships between Jung’s archetypes, game elements,
learning objectives and learning activities. In this sense, our greatest contributions are:
i) to present a conceptual representation model that any lecturer can use to compose
gamified strategies for educational purposes; ii) to present an ontology in OWL language
that can be used in the development of advanced and adaptable educational systems; iii) to
propose a model for mapping the learning process that can be replicated and expanded by
adding other approaches.
As future works, we aim to instance this ontology in a GES to verify if these profiles
affect the students’ motivation and engagement and compare with existing gamer profiles.
Based on these results, we will develop a content-based gamification framework.

Abbreviations
ADDIE: Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate; FOCA: A Methodology for Ontology Evaluation; GES:
Gamified Educational Systems; GQM: Goal, Question, Metric; ITS: Intelligent Tutoring Systems; LAT: Learning
Activities Types; LO: Learning Objectives; OWL: Web Ontology Language; MMORPG: Massive Multiplayer Online
Roleplaying Games; PBL: Points, Badges, and Leaderboards; RPG: Roleplaying Games; RQ: Research Question; SDT:
Self-Determination Theory; TGEEE: Taxonomy of Gamification Elements for Educational Environments; UX: User
Experience.

Endnotes
1 Defined as the use of game elements in non-game contexts (Deterding et al., 2011).
2 Which is a psychological state attained resulting from three characteristics: having non-trivial and attainable goals

to pursue; being motivated to pursue them according to a set of rules and being willing to accept those rules
because they make such activity possible. It is one of the possible results from gamification strategies (Landers et
al., 2019).
3 https://www.duolingo.com/
4 https://www.google.com/maps/

5 https://www.tripadvisor.com/
6 http://www.adampease.org/OP/

7 https://osf.io/xfqyj/?view_only=280114fe5d1f43679cd7e122dc60a3c4
8 https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/6gx487xb4c/5

9 The conceptual map of the ontology can be seen on the supplemental material at

https://osf.io/xfqyj/?view_only=280114fe5d1f43679cd7e122dc60a3c4
10 https://osf.io/xfqyj/?view_only=280114fe5d1f43679cd7e122dc60a3c4

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the funding provided by FAPESP (2018/07688-1), CAPES and CNPq.

Authors’ contributions
According to the CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy (https://casrai.org/credit/), the authors contributions were as
follows:
Palomino: Conceptualization, Data curation, methodology, software, visualization, writing - original draft.
Toda: Validation and writing - review & editing.
Rodrigues: Validation and writing - review & editing.
Oliveira: Validation and writing - review & editing.
Nacke: Conceptualization and Supervision.
Isotani: Conceptualization and Supervision.
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 30 of 35

Authors’ information
Dr. Paula Palomino is a post-doctorate researcher at Computing Institute of Federal University of Alagoas (Brazil) and
a visiting researcher at Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business of University of Waterloo (Canada),
holding a Ph.D. in Computer Science at University of São Paulo. Also holds an M.Sc and B.Sc in Communication. Her
research interests are game design, gamification, UX and digital culture, specifically researching the use of subjective
game elements in gamification frameworks applied to educational contexts.
Dr. Armando Toda is currently a (remote) post-doctorate researcher assistant at the Durham University (United
Kingdom) at the Artificial Intelligence and Human Systems Group (AIHS). Also a member of the Laboratory of
Computing Applied to Education and Advanced Social Technology (CAEd) at the University of São Paulo (Brazil).
Conducts his research on the topic of gamification applied to education, focusing on helping to plan gamified
strategies for educational contexts (virtual or not). In addition to gamification, he also works in the lines of digital
games, serious games, game-based learning, artificial intelligence applied to education, computational thinking in
educational contexts, human-computer interaction and educational software engineering.
M.Sc. Luiz Rodrigues is a researcher at the Laboratory of Applied Computing to Education and Advanced Social
Technology (CAEd) and a part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Industries from Londrina, Brazil. He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc
in Computer Science and is a Ph.D. candidate in the same topic. His research interests are gamification,
personalization and user modelling, educational data mining, educational games, and procedural content generation.
M.Sc. Wilk Oliveira is an assistant professor at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and was a visiting lecturer in the
Tiradentes University Center (Brazil). He is a researcher at the Laboratory of Computing Applied to Education and
Advanced Social Technology (University of São Paulo), Gamification Group (Tampere University—Finland), and the
Learning Lab (Durham University—UK). Wilk collaborated with the Brazilian Ministry of Education working on projects
related to the design, application, and evaluation of educational technologies. Wilk has been working on a series of
research projects, maintained by important international funding agencies, where he has worked on the design,
application, and evaluation of various educational technologies, generating different products and publishing
numerous scientific studies in some of the main international conferences and journals related to Educational
Technologies. Even as a young researcher, Wilk has already received several awards, including the best paper award
at different international conferences. His main research interests are educational technology (especially, but not
exclusively: flow theory, gamification, and educational games) and computer science education.
Professor Dr. Lennart Nacke teaches User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, and Game Design at the
University of Waterloo. As part of the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, the Department of
Communication Arts, and the Games Institute, he is researching player experience in video games, immersive VR
environments, and gameful applications. As a truly interdisciplinary researcher, he is cross-appointed and supervises
graduate students in the Department of Systems Design Engineering, the Department of English Language and
Literature, and the Cheriton School of Computer Science. Together with co-researchers, he published the PXI - player
experience inventory, gamification user types hexad scale, guidelines for biofeedback and sound design in games, and
a book on games user research. Professor Nacke has served on the steering committee of the International Game
Developers Association Games Research & User Experience Special Interest Group in the past, was the chair of the CHI
PLAY conference steering committee from 2014–2018. His publications have won Best Paper Awards at the CHI,
CSCW, and CHI PLAY conferences. He has published more than 100 scientific papers, which have been cited more than
10,000 times. He strongly believes in understanding users first to build more engaging games and compelling player
experiences.
Professor Dr. Seiji Isotani (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from the
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the Ph.D. degree in information engineering from Osaka University, Japan. He is
currently a Visiting Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Full Professor in Computer
Science and Learning Technology at the University of Sao Paulo. His research career has been devoted to the
conception, design, development, testing and deployment of intelligent, and collaborative educational systems using
ontologies and other AI technologies. His scientific and social missions converge into a single objective to enable the
realization of Anytime, Anywhere, Anybody Learning (AAAL) by developing cutting-edge technology. He is the
Co-Founder of two startups (MeuTutor and Linkn), which have won several innovation awards in the fields of
education and the semantic web. He has published over 200 scientific articles, books, and book chapters on
educational technology. His main research interests include gamification, intelligent tutoring systems, artificial
intelligence in education (AIED), computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), and learning technologies.

Funding
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo Award n. 2018/07688-1 (Wilk Oliveira).
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico Awards n. 141859/2019-9 (Luiz Rodrigues) and
163932/2020-4 (Armando Toda).

Availability of data and materials

All the supplemental material can be accessed at OSF:
https://osf.io/xfqyj/?view_only=280114fe5d1f43679cd7e122dc60a3c4
Palomino et al. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2023) 18:18 Page 31 of 35

Declarations

Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author details
Paula T. Palomino – [email protected] - Computing Institute, Federal University of Alagoas
Av. Lourival Melo Mota, S/N, Tabuleiro do Martins, Maceió, Alagoas 57072-900, Brazil
Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business of University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Armando M. Toda – [email protected] - Durham University (UK) and Institute of Mathematical and Computer
Sciences, University of São Paulo (Brazil)
Luiz Rodrigues – [email protected] - Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, University of São Paulo
(Brazil)
Wilk Oliveira – [email protected] - Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, University of São Paulo
(Brazil)
and Tampere University (Finland)
Lennart Nacke – [email protected] - Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, University of Waterloo
(Canada)
Seiji Isotani – [email protected] - Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences from University of São Paulo
(Brazil) and Harvard Graduate School of Education (United States)

Received: 27 October 2021 Accepted: 14 September 2022

Published: 28 February 2023 (Online First: 16 November 2022)

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