Instruction today is increasingly defined by learner engagement. This trend is reflected in Discovery Education’s Education Insights 2025-2026: Fueling Learning Through Engagement, which places motivation and learning experience at the center of modern education. As educators seek instructional approaches that address these priorities, growing attention is turning to methods that allow learning to adapt to individual needs without losing structure.
It is within this context that Gamification as a Means of Individualising Education in the 21st Century examines gamification as a structured instructional technology capable of supporting differentiated pacing and individualized learning design. To explore how these ideas translate into educational practice, we spoke with one of the book’s co-authors, Volha Hurskaya, an accomplished ESL instructor, researcher in Technology-Enhanced Language Education, and winner of the United Talents Award 2024.
The book's starting point reflects that educators face a growing disconnect between how learners interact with information in digital environments and instructional models shaped by earlier pedagogical assumptions. Many of these models emerged during the expansion of mass education in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when efficiency and standardization took precedence over individual engagement. As learning behaviors continue to evolve, the need for clear conceptual frameworks has become increasingly evident.
The first chapter responds to this challenge by situating gamification within the broader history of educational theory. It traces the development of game-related approaches in education and clarifies the distinction between gamification and game-based learning. By grounding gamification in established pedagogical concepts, the chapter frames it as a structured instructional technology that can be analyzed, designed, and applied systematically. Reflecting on this foundation, Hurskaya explains, “The theoretical chapter was essential because gamification is often discussed without clear pedagogical grounding. We wanted to show how it connects to long-standing educational theories and why it can be examined as an instructional framework rather than an isolated technique.”
From theory, the book moves toward one of the most practical questions facing contemporary education: how individualized learning can be organized within shared instructional settings. Addressed in the second chapter by an international team of scholars, Tamara Halytska-Didukh, Olena Hrechanovska, Iryna Batareina, Volha Hurskaya, and Ivanna Babik, this section focuses on managing diversity in pace, readiness, and learning preferences without fragmenting the classroom.
Within this framework, Hurskaya developed an original, practice-oriented approach that explains how game elements can be used to adjust learning for different students in the same class. Her contribution demonstrates how lessons can be designed so students move at different speeds and select tasks aligned with their abilities, while still working toward shared goals. As she notes, “I compared different ways educators try to personalize learning and saw that each model solves a different problem. Some help with grouping students, others support independence or progress tracking. What gamification makes possible is a clearer structure that helps educators see which approach fits their class and why, instead of relying on trial and error.”
As gamification becomes more common in schools and universities, attention increasingly shifts to its effectiveness. Interest in gamified learning has grown faster than clear methods for measuring its results, making learning progress, student motivation, and assessment central concerns for educators and institutions.
The third chapter addresses this gap by treating gamification as an instructional tool that requires clear evaluation standards. Drawing on an analysis of more than forty academic sources and classroom-based examples, the authors outline approaches to assessing learner engagement, learning progress, feedback quality, and instructional load. Hurskaya’s impact on this chapter includes developing a clear evaluation framework that helps educators move from intuitive judgments to structured analysis. “The goal was to move past simply adding game elements to lessons,” she explains. “We wanted to give educators a way to see how these elements influence learning behavior and how their impact can be evaluated using observable data.”
The book's final chapter addresses the realities educators face when implementing gamification. Limited instructional time, fixed curricula, administrative requirements, and uneven access to digital tools often complicate classroom adoption. In many cases, the challenge lies in integrating gamification into everyday teaching in a sustainable way.
As the book concludes, its message is clear: the future of education depends not on the number of digital tools in the classroom, but on how thoughtfully learning is designed around real learners. Gamification as a Means of Individualising Education in the 21st Century makes a meaningful contribution to contemporary educational discourse, demonstrating that when research, pedagogy, and classroom practice align, gamification becomes a practical way to make learning more flexible, meaningful, and effective.
Reflecting on the needs identified by contemporary education research, Hurskaya says, “Gamification can serve as a practical response to many of the challenges educators face today. When it is planned thoughtfully, it helps teachers manage diversity in the classroom, support learner motivation, and make learning progress more visible, without overcomplicating the instructional process.”
