A Comparative Study of Gamification in Progamming Education in a Croatian High School

During the European Code Week event in 2019. a comparative study on using a gamification platform (namely CodeCombat) for programming education was conducted in 4 distinct $1^{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{t}}$ and $2^{\mathrm{n}\mathrm{d}}$ grade classes (8 groups of students). The groups were from three distinct study programmes: computer technician, economist and car mechanic. With each group two surveys have been conducted one on self-assessment (before using a gamification platform) and one on self-evaluation (after using the gamification platform) in order to answer three simple questions: (1) what is the perception of students on the importance of programming knowledge and skills in everyday life (before and after using the platform), (2) did the students perceive that their knowledge and skills have been improved during the lesson (if yes, how much), and (3) did their motivation to learn programming increase due to using gamification? A total of 79 responses has been collected and the analysis of the results show that there is an increase in motivation for learning programming for the economist study programme, a decrease of motivation for the car mechanic study programme and an indifference in motivation for the computer technician study programme.