A Scholarly Character Sheet to Frame Learning Activities and Improve Engagement

Pascal Martinolli's paper introduces the Scholarly Character Sheet (SCS), a gamified self-assessment and role-taking activity adapted from tabletop role-playing game character sheets and used in information-literacy and research-skills seminars at the Université de Montréal. The SCS is designed to frame heterogeneous learning objectives, surface students' prior knowledge, personalize the instructor-student relationship, and recognize non-traditional skills. The activity has been used in a five-week graduate seminar since Fall 2017 and in a 15-hour library information-literacy seminar, with roughly 80 percent of the 276 participating students since 2017 sharing their completed sheets.

The evidence presented is encouraging but modest. A 2022 e-survey, answered by 55 of 217 students contacted, together with departmental evaluations, showed slight gains in satisfaction with course structure and fit to student needs. In a separate seminar, 41 of 54 participants recalled the activity, and most reported benefits such as identifying skill gaps and recognizing the value of curating an online scholarly profile. Negative feedback was sparse, chiefly concerning the sheet not being referenced during sessions. The author is candid that these findings are largely informal and that the SCS's specific contribution to learning cannot be isolated from broader changes in seminar quality. Claims about effects on metacognition, self-authorship, self-determination, and growth mindset rest mainly on theoretical argument, and the study offers no verified controls for student overconfidence.

The paper's bibliography situates the work within research on self-authorship, self-efficacy, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and the use of TTRPGs in education, drawing on analyses of character sheets as textual and design artifacts.