The use of online games in the classroom has recently interested me. What I'm specifically interested in is teaching first-year composition online. The following article is an analysis of two articles, one quantitative and one qualitative, on studies of gamification within a course. The qualitative article examines a week-long exercise in which students participated in a scavenger hunt. This activity was designed to better acclimate students with the course content and hopefully gain a real world or practical application from it. The quantitative article examines a game designed to give students a better understanding of a specific economic theory. Although none of these studies have anything to do with writing, the design that the authors took for each of them gives me insight as I begin my dissertation. The following is a closer look at these possibilities through an analysis of each article.Qualitative ArticleThe article "How a Mobile Social Media Game Can Enhance the Educational Experience" by Parise and Crosina (2012) provides a study of case on the use of the game in a learning environment. The authors wanted to know whether e-learning elements integrated into a traditional face-to-face course would improve learning outcomes. They created a game using a social media gaming platform called SCVNGR, where they essentially created a week-long scavenger hunt for students to use. The activity combined both live physical interactions between students and also had them use online technology (including mobile) to acquire cues and communicate with each other. After the game was completed, the instructors met with the students and held a focus group asking the following seven questions: Do you think... in the middle of the sheet...... The exam puts the emphasis on the importance of being learner-centered. and how some students can be unmotivated, regardless of the learning environment. They also emphasize the importance of "practice" for the game, because the more complicated it is, the more problems there will be. Works Cited Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design. Los Angeles: SAGE. Huang, W. H. (2011). Assessing learners' motivational and cognitive processing in an online game-based learning environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 694-704. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.07.021 Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design: an interactive approach. Los Angeles: SAGE. Parise, SP and Eliana, C. (2012). How a social media mobile game can enhance the educational experience. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 8, 209-222. Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol8no3/parise_0912.htm