Gamifying Graduate Skills Tracking for Enhanced Employability

Summary

The evolving global workplace emphasizes employability skills, including meta-skills (e.g., critical thinking, adaptability) and graduate skills (e.g., technical proficiency, communication). Despite their importance, research, including at RGU, shows students often struggle to recognise, articulate, and develop these skills during their studies. This project proposes a gamified platform enabling students to track, visualise, and enhance their employability skills.

Integrated with RGU’s Akari system, which connects Module Unit Descriptors (MUDs) to meta-skills, the platform will provide students with a personalised overview of their competencies. Objectives include designing software for skill tracking, gamifying the process to encourage engagement, and creating a visible skill tree for CVs and employers.

In Scotland, frameworks by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) emphasise transferable skills across disciplines, yet research highlights a misalignment between curricula and students’ perceptions of employability (Bremner et al., 2024). This gap underlines the need for real-time skill tracking to enhance student engagement with Learning Level Outcomes (LLOs). A gamified system would address this, offering insights into skill development and identifying growth opportunities. Gamification has proven effective in higher education, fostering engagement through elements like achievements, progress tracking, and skill trees. This project will leverage these to create an interactive system that promotes skill development and articulation.

Potential Methodology

The research could adopt a mixed-methods approach with three core phases:

1. System Design and Development

• Collaborate with Akari developers and the RGU IT team to establish data integration protocols that link each module's LLOs to corresponding meta-skills.
• Design the gamified interface with interactive elements, such as badges, skill trees, and a progress bar that reflect students' skill development journey. Inspiration will be drawn from successful gamification elements in digital applications, ensuring usability and aesthetic appeal.

2. Pilot and Usability Testing

• Conduct an initial pilot with select RGU students across multiple disciplines to test the system’s functionality and user engagement. Data from this phase will inform refinements in user interface design and feature implementation.
• Gather qualitative and quantitative feedback on usability, engagement, and perceived value. Usability testing will be conducted iteratively to address and optimize user experience.

3. Evaluation and Impact Assessment

• Deploy the tool across RGU for an academic year, and collect data on students’ interaction with the system, engagement with skill-building activities, and the utilization of skill visualizations in CVs and job applications.
• Conduct surveys and interviews with students and faculty to assess the tool’s impact on skill development, employability awareness, and the ease with which students can communicate their skills to potential employers.

Potential Impact and Contribution

This research addresses a significant gap in students’ ability to understand and document their employability skills through gamification. The proposed system aligns with current educational trends toward personalized, skills-based learning and prepares students for an adaptable workforce. By developing an innovative approach to tracking graduate skills within a gamified structure, this project will serve as a model for universities seeking to enhance employability skills through active student engagement and dynamic digital tools.

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