Enhancing Students' Class Participation through Gamification: Creating Motivational Affordance, Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes

Hafizah Abd-Mutalib,Ifa Rizad Mustapa,Danilah Salleh

doi:10.13189/ujer.2019.071604

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine if the method of gamification may improve students’ class participation during the deliverance of course content. Drive by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study believes that motivational affordance resulted from gamification activity may lead to psychological outcome, and this psychological outcome will lead to behavioural outcome. Methodology: The study was conducted using qualitative action research methodology with descriptive analysis in two classes of Enterprise Strategy course. Three phases were involved for data gathering. Main Findings: In phase 1, when traditional lecture was solely used, students seemed to be passive, indifferent and reluctant to participate. In phase 2, when traditional lecture is supplanted with gamification activity, students have participated actively. Similar results of phase 2 was found in phase 3, where different set of students were observed. Students also perceived that using gamification in classroom provide enjoyable and fun environment, attractive and exciting, besides enhancing knowledge. Students also perceived that gamification activity increases participation, improving motivation, creating competition, developing teamwork and bonding between students and instructor and should be conducted more. Application: The results of this study may be beneficial to students in term of new technique used in teaching and learning process through enhancement of knowledge circulation from lecturers to students or between the students themselves. The results may also heighten the awareness of instructors in identifying alternative tools besides conducting traditional lectures. The results also may encourage administrators in helping the instructors towards upgrading their teaching methods and performance using latest applications for the purpose of improving students’ engagement. Novelty/Originality: The findings from study add to the body of knowledge on the significance of using gamification in classroom in order to engage students in classroom activity.

Highlights

Traditional lecture has become an important or main medium in higher learning classroom delivery
This study focus on the effect of gamification, where the concept and aims are effectively implemented when the following chain of effects are achieved: game mechanics are used for triggering motivational affordances and creating psychological outcomes to the players or users in the form of enjoyment, which in turn lead to behavioral outcomes, in the form of participation (Hamari et al, 2014)
According to Sigala (2015), motivational affordance that is created in the gamification process leads to users’ experiential value creation in the forms of psychological or behavioral outcome (Hamari et al, 2014; Sigala, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Traditional lecture has become an important or main medium in higher learning classroom delivery. Traditional lecture may be referred to the transmission of the lecturer’s knowledge from their notes to the students’ notepads (Isaacs, 1989). It enables the teacher, lecturer or instructor to cover the necessary content in an allocated time; where instructors can make knowledge more meaningful by relating the lecture content to the students’ prior knowledge and relate it to real life examples (Dolnicar, 2005). Despite these advantages, traditional lecture has its own drawbacks. Traditional lecture encourages intellectual passivity, as students will exhibit low level of engagement (McGarr, 2009)

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