Abstract
Technology is being increasingly integrated into teaching environments in view of enhancing students’ engagement and motivation. In particular, game-based student response systems have been found to foster students’ engagement, enhance classroom dynamics and improve overall students’ learning experience. This article presents outcomes of research that examined students’ experience using a game-based student response system, Kahoot!, in an Information Systems Strategy and Governance course at a research-intensive teaching university in New Zealand. We conducted semi-structured interviews with students to learn about the extent to which Kahoot! influence classroom dynamics, motivation and students’ learning process. Key findings revealed that Kahoot! enriched the quality of student learning in the classroom, with the highest influence reported on classroom dynamics, engagement, motivation and improved learning experience. Our findings also suggest that the use of educational games in the classroom is likely to minimise distractions, thereby improving the quality of teaching and learning beyond what is provided in conventional classrooms. Other factors that contributed to students’ enhanced learning included the creation and integration of appropriate content in Kahoot!, providing students with timely feedback, and game-play (gamification) strategies.
Highlights
The rapid increase in the availability and affordability of interactive technologies has contributed to the adoption of games in instructional science and higher education teaching to foster collaborative learning, exploration and discovery (e.g. Ebner and Holzinger 2007; Papastergiou 2009)
Educational games and game-based student response systems (GSRS; gamification techniques integrated into student response systems) both increase student motivation and engagement (e.g. Barrio et al 2016; Wang and Lieberoth 2016), especially in circumstances where conventional lecture style or “chalk and talk” teaching are resented by students and induce boredom (Cheong et al 2013; Graham 2015; Roehl et al 2013)
Student engagement relates to the level of attention, curiosity, focus and interest that students show during the course
Summary
The rapid increase in the availability and affordability of interactive technologies has contributed to the adoption of games in instructional science and higher education teaching to foster collaborative learning, exploration and discovery (e.g. Ebner and Holzinger 2007; Papastergiou 2009). In New Zealand universities, maintaining students’ attention and engagement can be difficult in Information Science lectures, as the classes can be teacher-centred, with limited student participation and on-task peer interaction. It is plausible that integrating GSRSs in lectures to test and teach students’ course knowledge will increase their engagement and learning and increase on-task mobile use behaviour. Research exploring the learning impacts of GSRSs is limited, its potential effectiveness as a learning tool has been supported by an extensive body of successful educational video and computer game adaptions. Papastergiou (2009) found that games improved students’ knowledge of computer memory systems to a greater extent than other computer-mediated learning tools, namely, educational websites. Kahoot! is increasingly used as a formative assessment tool in medical undergraduate programs and was found to support learning retention (Ismail and Mohammad 2017)
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