**Abstract**

After the CoVid-19 pandemic lockdown occurred (2020–2021), there have been crucial changes in teaching-learning methodologies, mainly because of the emergency online education format, due to the high demand for online education formats. Long hours of learning in front of a screen besides the stressful environment surrounding the pandemic make it difficult to keep learning motivation high, which shows the need for an urgent change in instructional design. This change includes using interactive and participative methodologies for tackling the anxiety produced by the global health crisis. In this frame, gamification tools have emerged worldwide entailing significant benefits to education. Nevertheless, the overuse of technology can lead to several problems including physiological complications among other things, myopia, diabetes, and coronary disease risk (because of sedentariness) and even addiction. Finally, research proves that an adequate frame around technology use and games inclusion in learning can help diminish or even avoid social problems such as addiction and the resulting concentration problems. Furthermore, in the case of active video gaming, it might be advisable for alleviating sedentary habit-related diseases. Therefore, it is important to reflect on the use of games and its objectives for obtaining the best results from powerful strategic motivators.

**Keywords:** motivation, gamification, CoVid-19, learning methodology, online teaching

### **1. Introduction**

Several factors have caused changes in education in the last few years. CoVid-19 pandemic has been the reason for important changes in education, forcing an urgent shift to virtual education as never before. The resulting lockdown entailed, among other consequences, a significant increase in loneliness and, as a result, stress-related behaviors and cognition [1]. Beyond these serious facts, students have been exposed to additional stressors including economy-related challenges such as access to technology and learning conditions [2]. These last ones include user-unfriendly requirements of online education, under-stimulation, low perceived control over tasks [3], reduced learning time, and inadequate methodological design for online teaching, among others [4]. In such a frame, gamification played an important role in improving educational design. Gamification is not entirely new since the term was already minted by game designer Nick Pelling in 2002, with a later ubiquitous interest in the 2010s.

The definition is then applied to "the use of game-based elements in nongame contexts to encourage users to perform desired behavior" [5] (p. 158).

Results have shown that gamification is a motivational, innovative, and engaging strategy for teaching learning not only in one but also in several different areas [6] even if the conditions of the pandemic lead to burnout [7] and anxiety [8].

When speaking about management, [9] mentions several reasons for resistance to change. These reasons include not understanding the objectives of such a change, disagreement with the new directions of enterprises, or merely anxiety about the consequences of change in their jobs. These considerations can help to understand why teachers had not massively included gamification in instructional design before the pandemic. Nevertheless, several arguments prove that gamification can considerably improve learning quality and students' motivation.

Supporting this last argument, there are a number of articles verifying the effectiveness of serious games as learning instruments for understanding scientific conceptions since they have been related to positive performances in the field [10]. As a key aspect of design, challenging content is advised as well as recognition of content-related benefits [11].

Nonetheless, there are serious objections worth considering. Such objections are related to game addiction [12–16] and underline the importance of balance since even the best tools can have little or no impact when not framed in the right design. Together with these objections, video games are currently linked to sedentariness and consequently to obesity and other negative health conditions, with the exception of active video games [17].

### **2. A never-seen-before scenario: CoVid-19 pandemic**

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Coronavirus disease (CoVid-19) on March 11, 2020, with more than 47 million confirmed cases by the end of April 2021. Even if Ecuador was not one of the countries with the highest number of confirmed cases, it was severely impacted. Still more, besides the impact on the health system, socioeconomic, equity, and ethical dimensions were reported [18].

Because of the aforementioned pandemic, several mobility restrictions were implemented worldwide, and our country was not the exception. As a result, a worse self-reported mental health was verified, which led to the recommendation of health promotion measures to mitigate the effects of confinement on mental health, particularly in youngsters and women, the most touched populations according to research [19].

As another consequence of this confinement, economic activities were affected. For instance, the tourist sector—an important source of revenue in Ecuador reported falling occupancy rates, reduced pay, mass layoffs, and shutdown [20]. Research has found that pandemic stress is directly related to ill family members and kids involved in online learning [21].

Naturally, the pandemic itself had an impact on the population's mental health, specifically through a high level of distress as a direct consequence of news [22] not to mention domestic violence and multiple domains of abuse needing adequate prevention problems [23].

In this complex context, adequate methodologies, frameworks, and tools have been used to overcome education affectation since everyday learning should not be interrupted. Then, the educational process would be allowed to continue at their regular pace, reflecting even an improved performance and a positive mindset. According to

this research, the CoVid-19 pandemic scenario indirectly contributed to taking advantage of the huge amount of courses, video lectures, learning tips, and mentoring material available through online tools for a more efficient learning process. At the same time, people's productivity and usefulness increased as an additional consequence [24].
