September 20, 2025
Boosting Student Engagement and Learning Outcomes Through Gamification
ZUNO partnered with the University of Montenegro to create Moja Ekonomija to drive up student engagement with its Economics course. Through ZUNO’s gamified learning platform, the Faculty of Economics brought back engagement and excitement with its course material and improved academic results.
For universities, engagement with course material is an ongoing challenge; fewer and fewer students are meaningfully interacting with course material. Gen Z students in particular are more connected but less engaged and no longer see the classroom as the most effective learning tool.
A 2015 study by Microsoft said that while our ability to multitask has gone up, our attention span has gone down- significantly. The challenge for the Faculty of Economics at the University of Montenegro was clear: how to keep students engaged and interested in the course materials not only during exam season, but throughout the year.
We built Moja Ekonomija with the priorities of teachers and Gen Z students at its core to take this challenge head on.
With challenge comes innovation. Moja Ekonomija delivers simple, easy-to-understand games that last no longer than 7 minutes to deliver faculty-approved course content directly to the smartphone of the student. These games, which are fun, immersive and engaging, are accessible to any of the students with a smartphone, whose preferred way of accessing content is on the go through short, snappy delivery. We don’t shy away from these methods of accessing content, we embrace them. And what’s more- Moja Ekonomija rewards students for embracing them too!
We knew students at the University of Montenegro wanted to engage with the course material, but the challenge of remaining engaged, coupled with the lack of relatable incentives, has historically driven down engagement. Enter stars and diamonds.
Students are competitive. With Moja Ekonomija we wanted to create a system which would facilitate competition for students, with the benefit of learning course material as you compete, so we designed a system of rewards and incentives for students who engage with the app. Not only did this allow teachers to incentivise their students in a fresh, relatable way, (more on that below!) but it gave the students a sense of competition and accomplishment they did not have for other subjects.
By imparting competition, we created a new habit for the students that directly impacted their learning progress. That is why just 5 minutes per day spent on the app improved academic results and 90.32% of students believed Moja Ekonomija should be available for all subjects.
From the outset, our goal with Moja Ekonomija was to create a tool that not only engages students, but also aligns with teachers’ priorities, capacities, and teaching goals.
ZUNO’s educational games centre around the ethos that teachers should have the control, without the added workload. Throughout the design process, we engaged with professors at the University of Montenegro to ensure the app would have a simple, easy-to-access back end.
With their own log in details and home screen, Moja Ekonomija gave teachers that control. Using the simple interface, professors could easily upload course material to our in-built AI tool DELCAT. DELCAT then took the information and gamified it, turning complex and difficult subjects into fun, accessible games for the students. Customised to the branding of the Faculty of Economics, Moja Ekonomija gave Gen Z students a modern and relatable way of engaging with university-prescribed topics like The Principles of Economics and Economy of the Company. And engage they did!
But engagement isn't everything. A key concern of teachers we worked with when designing Moja Ekonomija was measuring student progress. With Moja Ekonomija’s in-built data analytics tools, teachers were able to view student progress in real time, both as individual learners, and as part of wider cohorts. They could see which topics students were engaging with most, which questions were the most difficult, and where they could offer support. Moja Ekonomija connected the individual learning of the students outside of the classroom, with the expertise and support of the professors inside the classroom.
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Our goal was to support students and teachers simultaneously with a fresh, innovative platform. The results were even better than we expected. After seeing how students improved their engagement with the course through Moja Ekonomija, the Faculty of Economics expanded the app’s use to all of its first year students. This was a true testament to the effectiveness and adaptability of the app. Dr. Tamara Backović of the Faculty of Economics said:
“Moja Ekonomija supports students in learning, exam preparation, and knowledge testing in an innovative and engaging way tailored to new generations”.
The students praised the precise question structure, the unique and engaging design and how useful the game was for learning new material before and during exam season.
Moja Ekonomija was built to embrace the modern learning habits of students, not push back against them. Teachers needed a quick, relatable way of delivering the course content, whilst keeping the students engaged. Through Moja Ekonomija, we delivered X number of lessons and students spent X number of hours on the app. Teachers embraced a new way of ensuring continued engagement with important topics in the age of Tik Tok and limited attention windows.
We could not be prouder of providing a modern, engaging solution to the students at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Montenegro that embraces the new age of learning.
See Moja Ekonomija in action!
See coverage of Moja Ekonomija below:
