Gamification Effect on Higher Education Students’ Motivation

Abstract

Gamification has nowadays been increasingly gaining acceptability in teaching and learning context. Gamification is a powerful educational tool because it encourages and enhances the motivation of the learners, especially the learners of the digital age. It greatly facilitates the learning with engagement, motivation and collaboration among students. The study is conducted to find out the significant effect of gamification motivation among university students. The study used a correlational descriptive design. The population of the study is all preparatory year college students who are studying the course of ‘SPEPS-100: University Study Skills’ at the University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The sample selected for the study is comprised of 334 students who have been selected using random sampling technique. Students were given gamified online classes using LMS with two gamified strategies i.e. badges and leaderboards with a maximum score 30. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) is used to assess students’ motivation for learning. The three dimensions taken from MSLQ, which are value components, expectancy components, and affective component, are taken for assessment with 31 items. The statistical tests used for analysis of data are individuals' correlation and simple linear regression analysis. The study found a significant effect of gamification on motivation as overall and for its every dimension among university students. The study concluded that although there is a significant effect, gamification is not a strong predictor of motivation among college students.