Badging to support teaching and student engagement: An implementation of a school-based badging system

Abstract

Badges and badging have recently emerged as a program within formal and informal education to improve learning experiences. Yet, there are very few empirical studies of their implementation within a school setting. This dissertation presents two studies of a badging system within a school-based setting. As a school-based intervention, ostensibly the badging system could impact both the students and the teachers involved. Therefore, one of the studies directs its lens on the participating students and the other study directs its lens on the participating teachers. The first study explores the relationship between student participation in the school’s badging system and students’ interests. Specifically, the paper uncovers some key elements of the badges that motivated students’ participation. The second study investigates the impact on teachers participating as facilitators within the badging system. Specifically, the study investigates if teachers learned new information about students that could be actionable for instruction, did the badging system influence their interactions with colleagues, and did the badging system influence their instruction in any way? The data suggest that the badging system provided teachers with new information about their students, but had minimal impact on the teachers’ collegial interactions and instructional practice. The contribution of this work is more than simply providing empirical findings to a nascent field. These findings suggest design features to a badging system to support student motivation as well as ways that teachers can accrue benefits from involvement. Furthermore, this study offers hypotheses related to badging that can be pursued in future studies.