Let’s be clear: gamification isn’t about playing video games during your study breaks. It’s about applying the principles of games—like progress tracking, feedback, rewards, and incremental mastery—to your learning. Think about your favorite app or fitness tracker that motivates you to show up every day. That’s gamification in action.
Even better? You don’t need to invest in expensive software or rely only on your commercial bar review course. With just a notebook, a spreadsheet, and a bit of creativity, you can build your own gamified system.
To better understand how gamification can work in the context of legal education, I reached out to two of my colleagues at the University of Dayton’s Ryan C. Harris Learning Teaching Center and Center for Online Learning—Julianne Morgan and Hannah Jackson, both instructional design specialists—to offer a variety of practical strategies and theoretical insights.
The Theory Behind Gamification
Jackson said that gamification is grounded in something called self-determination theory, a psychology framework that emphasizes three needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Gamified systems satisfy all three.
“SDT tells us that motivation and, by consequence, learning are improved when students feel capable, they are connected to others, and they have a sense of control and purpose,” Jackson said.
Gamification also helps diversify assessment, which makes learning feel more authentic. You’re not just preparing for one big test. Instead, you’re building skills step by step, with feedback along the way.
“Students can use gamification techniques to help rekindle momentum,” Morgan said. “By incorporating these gamification strategies, studying for the bar exam becomes more engaging and less of a grind. Whether it’s through personal incentives or friendly competition, adding a layer of challenge and reward can help keep motivation burning strong.”
How to Gamify Law School and Bar Prep for Free
Earn XP for Studying
Think of XP (short for experience points) as a way to track how much you’ve learned. In many popular games—like Call of Duty or Pokémon GO—players gain XP by completing objectives, battling opponents, or exploring new areas. The more XP you earn, the stronger you become, unlocking new abilities, rankings, or rewards. The same concept applies here: Assign XP to your study tasks and track your progress.
For example:
- 5 XP for reading a case
- 10 XP for briefing a case
- 15 XP for completing a set of multiple-choice questions
- 30 XP for writing and reviewing an essay
- 50 XP for completing a performance test
Set weekly XP goals—say, 300 XP—and reward yourself when you reach them. You can use a spreadsheet, a sticky note chart, or a simple habit tracker. Morgan recommended scaling rewards to effort: “If the reward is a larger-ticket item, set it up on a weekly basis. Study for two hours a day for five days in a row, then reward yourself.”
Why It Works: Accumulating XP makes progress visible. You’re no longer guessing if you did enough—you’re seeing it in real time. It helps turn studying into a series of achievable, satisfying wins.
Turn Study Sessions into Mini-Challenges
In many games, players complete timed missions or mini-quests to earn points or advance. Fortnite, Animal Crossing, and mobile games such as Candy Crush or Clash Royale all use short-term challenges or objectives to keep players engaged. These time-bound tasks break up the experience into smaller goals that keep the action feeling purposeful and rewarding. These challenges make the experience feel active and goal-driven rather than repetitive.
Morgan provided a few examples of challenges:
- Speed Run: Outline an essay in 10 minutes. Compare with a model.
- Combo Streak: Get five multiple-choice questions right in a row.
- Boss Battle: Take a full-length practice exam under timed conditions.
- Focus Mode: Read or brief a case without distraction for 30 minutes.
Morgan said one effective way to stay engaged is by creating a physical or visual representation of your study goals, such as a “bar prep quest” board with sticky notes or a checklist that lets you track progress and unlock small rewards as you complete each item. This approach makes the process feel hands-on, goal-oriented, and satisfying.
Why It Works: Timed and goal-based challenges build focus and mimic test-day pressure. Instead of a long, vague study session, you’re completing specific objectives, just like in a game.
Build Streaks to Keep Momentum
A streak is when you do something consistently every day. Apps like Duolingo thrive on this—you don’t want to break your streak once it starts. The same logic works for studying.
Here’s how you can build a study streak:
- Use a calendar or app to log daily study
- Set a realistic minimum (e.g., 20 multiple-choice questions per day)
- Compete with a friend to maintain the longest streak
- Add milestone rewards for 10, 30, or 60-day streaks
Streaks tap into competence, relatedness, and autonomy, the three psychological needs met by gamification, according to Jackson. “You’re building skill. You’re accountable to yourself or others. And you’re in control,” she said.
Why It Works: Streaks reduce friction. Once you’ve done something five or ten days in a row, it becomes part of your routine and harder to skip.
Gamify Your Bar Review Course Completion
Think of bar prep as your final boss battle. Just like in classic video games where players spend time building skills, collecting resources, and defeating smaller enemies before confronting the final villain, bar prep is the culmination of all your legal education.
You’ve trained, leveled up, and now it’s time to prove what you’ve learned in the ultimate test. That might mean back-to-back essays, multiple-choice questions, and performance tests, all packed into two or three intense days.
Framing it as a “boss battle” reminds you that every study session leading up to it matters. It also helps you stay motivated and focused through the final stretch. Completing hundreds of practice questions and essay drills can feel endless. Break it up into smaller, satisfying wins:
- XP for each task or module completed
- Weekly streaks (e.g., five days of review)
- Unlockable rewards for big wins (two essays, a full-length MPT)
- Simulate full exams under real conditions (Boss Mode)
- Track progress with a checklist or “Study Battle Pass”
“You could also reward yourself by answering questions correctly,” Morgan said. “For each question you get correct, put a dollar toward a fund for a vacation after you pass the bar exam.”
Why It Works: Gamifying bar prep creates a structure that feels manageable. You build confidence one checkpoint at a time.
Incentives and Fantasy Leagues
It’s important to note that rewards don’t need to be elaborate, though. Jackson said rewards just need to be meaningful: “The key is to find what keeps you going and use it to push through, because every bit of effort brings you one step closer to passing the bar.”
Here are some ideas to try:
- Daily study = one episode of your favorite show
- Get 80 percent+ on an MBE set = treat yourself to takeout
- Study at least eight hours/day for five consecutive days = buy that thing on Amazon you’ve been eyeing
Want something more competitive? Try a bar prep fantasy league, Morgan said. Everyone chips into a prize pot. Whoever performs best on a practice exam gets the biggest share.
Form teams with your peers and take exams as a group. Everyone contributes a small amount of money towards a prize. According to Morgan, “Everyone is motivated to study to help the group out and win the prize. Whichever team scores the best on a practice exam wins the reward.”
Why It Works: Incentives tap into real motivation—and so does peer competition. It adds excitement and accountability.
Badges, Achievements, and Milestones
Badges are small awards that show you’ve hit a milestone. Think of them like digital trophies in a game—but you don’t need fancy software or an app to make them work. You can create your own system using stickers, colored pens, sticky notes, or digital icons in a spreadsheet. These visual indicators of progress help reinforce your accomplishments in a fun and motivating way, even if they’re completely self-made. Just like achievements in a game, these small markers of success remind you how far you’ve come.
“Badges, achievements, and milestones are really important elements in motivation,” said Ellen Sass Douglas, Vice President for Product and Administration at Themis Bar Review and former adjunct professor and assistant dean for academic success and bar passage at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. “Not only does it give someone a sense of accomplishment, but it also sets a goal to reach the next milestone. It drives engagement and builds good habits, both of which are crucial to success in law school and on the bar exam.”
If your bar review course doesn’t provide badges, you can create your own custom badges with fun names to celebrate your achievements—like earning a “Rule of Law” badge for completing an entire subject, a “Legal Eagle” badge for maintaining a 30-day study streak, or a “Motion to Dismiss” badge for scoring over 90 percent on a practice set of question.
You don’t need real badges. Sticky notes or color-coded symbols work just fine. The point is to recognize your progress.
Why It Works: Recognition matters, according to Sass Douglas. “Simply finishing your to-do list for the day can make an appreciable difference in motivation,” she said. “One of the early ways Themis introduced gamification elements into our bar review courses was a simple celebratory message when students completed all of their assignments for the day, and we gave them a choice to take a break for the day or get back to the grind. Students absolutely loved it, and some even went back to their studies to get ahead for the next day.”
From Grind to Game
Law school and bar prep can be grueling. But they don’t have to be joyless. With a little creativity, you can turn studying into a game you want to keep playing.
Track XP. Challenge yourself. Build streaks. Reward wins. Celebrate small milestones. Create your own rules and set your own goals. The only thing that matters is making the process sustainable and, dare I say, a little fun.
And remember, as both Jackson and Morgan emphasized, the best gamification strategies are the ones that give you ownership over your process, build your confidence, and keep you coming back. Most importantly, gamification doesn’t require costly apps or flashy tools. As both experts made clear, it can be entirely free—built with things you already have: a notebook, a pen, a spreadsheet, some Post-it notes, and your own motivation. Find what works for you—whether it’s streaks, rewards, competition, or visual progress—and stick with it.
