Personalized Gamified Education: Feedback Mechanisms and Adaptive Learning Paths

The study introduces a gamified model integrated into the university curricula at Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy through Moodle courses, incorporating motivational elements such as badges, rankings, levels, and interactive tasks, alongside intrinsic rewards, serious educational game, Non-player character (NPC) mentors, personalized learning paths, and real-time feedback mechanisms. The authors develop the Educational Gamified Ontology Method (EGOM) and Educational Gamified Description Framework (EGDF) and employ them in courses to establish relationships between students, tasks, and game elements, enabling adaptive learning paths tailored to individual performance. The integration of these techniques supports a flexible, ontology-driven approach that enhances student motivation, participation, and academic success. Through the combination of gamified learning and adaptive learning mechanisms, this paper provides a foundation for future innovations in personalized education. The findings and the implementation of this paper are successfully applied at National Scientific Program “Security and Defense”.