Learning by teaching is an active and cognitively demanding process that requires sustained engagement. In digital learning environments, conventional reward systems often rely on extrinsic incentives that risk shifting users’ attention away from building understanding through active reflection. The central challenge of this thesis is to design rewards that balance meaningful learning, sustained motivation, and responsible use.

To address this challenge, the thesis synthesizes insights from motivational psychology, game design, and human-computer interaction. Through an outside-in approach, a user-centered perspective is applied to analyze developmental characteristics and learning contexts of the target group. Relevant elements from reference games are examined to derive core design principles, which are structured along the user journey and conceptually evaluated for coherence and usability.

The outcome is a theoretically grounded hybrid reward framework that translates motivational and game design principles into practical design recommendations for mobile learning concepts based on learning by teaching. The framework shows how immediate feedback and progression over time can be balanced through competence-based rewards, calibrated emotional feedback, transparent support escalation, and contextual replay invitations. The work provides a coherent conceptual foundation to inform future development decisions in comparable educational contexts. It supports learner-focused design by highlighting key trade-offs, such as guidance versus autonomy and progress visibility versus distraction, while emphasizing transparency, usability, and trust. The framework provides a flexible basis for future empirical testing and iterative refinement.