Toward a Lecturer-Centered Gamification Framework in Pedagogical Design in STEM Higher Education

Gamification has been widely implemented in STEM based higher education to increase student engagement and motivation. However, the conceptual foundation is still dominated by a student-centered or system-centered approach. This study aims to examine the extent to which lecturer-centered perspectives are integrated in gamification-based STEM learning. By following the PRISMA 2020 protocol, a total of 1,321 initial documents were identified from the Scopus database. After going through a rigorous screening and feasibility assessment process, 97 peer-reviewed journal articles were evaluated, and only 11 studies (11.3%) demonstrated structured pedagogical modeling by explicitly placing lecturers as instructional designers. Bibliometric analysis revealed that the dominant themes revolved around gamification, student engagement, engineering education, and game-based learning, while instructional design and the role of lecturers were in a less central position in the main discourse. The thematic synthesis identifies four main dimensions, namely the digital competence of lecturers, the cognitive load in gamification design, the alignment of lecturer and student motivation, and the need for a systematic pedagogical design framework. These findings show a significant gap in the model that systematically guides lecturers in designing pedagogically aligned gamification in the STEM context. In response, this study proposes a conceptual framework of Lecturer-Centered Gamification (LCG) structured in pre-game, in-game, and post-game phases, emphasizing pedagogical intentionality, interaction design, and systematic evaluation. This study makes a theoretical contribution by repositioning the role of lecturers as the core of gamification architecture, as well as practical contributions as the foundation for the development of sustainable and scalable gamified learning designs in higher education.