| Abstract | This presentation examines how gamification and automated validation can enhance coding education and assessment in higher education. It focuses on an “escape room” approach developed for the Web Design and Development module in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, where both weekly tutorials and the laboratory practical assessment were redesigned as structured coding challenges. Students progress by completing incremental tasks and unlocking stages through automated validation of their HTML code. The presentation uses evidence-based insights to argue that this approach helps students develop a more systematic method for tackling coding tasks. Instead of relying on trial and error, students are encouraged to break problems into smaller steps, validate their work regularly, and recognise the importance of clean and accurate code. This is particularly valuable in web development, where browsers often display pages even when the underlying code contains errors. It also highlights the practical benefits of this model for large and distributed cohorts across multiple campuses and partner institutions. Automated validation provides immediate and consistent feedback, supports independent learning, and reduces the burden of manual checking for teaching staff. At the same time, manual marker adjustments remain part of the assessment process to preserve fairness and academic judgement. Overall, the presentation positions gamified validation as a scalable and pedagogically meaningful innovation for improving engagement, feedback, and consistency in higher education. |
|---|