Gamification of Blockchain Learning

There are new technologies that have changed the way we live our lives and blockchain is one of those technologies that has the potential to change the way the world transacts. One of the reasons people fear new things is because they do not know how they work. Bloxxgame is a simulation tool that aims to teach students how blockchain works. This game was developed with the idea of showing students how the Bitcoin blockchain would look like if the steps were done manually. The consensus model of a blockchain is arguably the most important part of it and bloxxgame allows students to experience it. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact bloxxgame has on students and their understanding about blockchain. In order to answer this, a methodology is proposed in this paper which uses the three teaching scenarios suggested by the bloxxgame creators and Serrano-Laguna et al., 2018. The study was divided into two sessions, 116 students participated in the first and 79 in the second. All players completed two assessments, one before and one after playing bloxxgame. To analyze the results, the players were categorized and a paired t-test was performed. The results of the category analysis show that most players were masters which means that they already possessed the knowledge to pass the assessments before the playing bloxxgame. The overall result of the paired t-test show a significant positive difference in knowledge before and after playing bloxxgame.