The effect of gamified student response systems on students' achievement, motivation and anxiety levels in English Language Teaching

One challenge in today's classroom is to create and maintain engagement and motivation amongst the students who spend most of their time in mobile games, apps, or other digital platforms. Therefore, many educators use games and game elements in teaching environment to increase student motivation, engagement, or achievement. Educational games in their non-digital forms have become popular starting with Piaget, in 1952, who defined game as a cognitive development experience for children. Digital forms of educational games are becoming more and more common and are used as teaching tools inside and outside of the classroom. Student response systems, which have recently been widely used in online or face-to-face classrooms, are one of these new gamified digital teaching tools that attract students' attention thanks to the game elements they contain. This study aims to examine the effects of gamified student response systems on students' achievement, motivation, and anxiety levels in teaching English. The research method of the study is embedded explanatory mixed design. The quantitative data of the research was obtained from the experimental process that was carried out with three different groups of EFL learners studying at İnönü University English Preparatory Program. Before and after the experimental procedure, the data on the achievement, motivation and anxiety levels of the groups was obtained and analysed. Students in experimental groups took formative assessment tests prepared with gamified student response systems called Kahoot and Socrative, whereas control group students took paper based formative assessment tests. Quantitative findings indicated that students who took paper-based formative tests achieved the highest average scores, suggesting that traditional assessment methods may provide a more structured and focused environment conducive to higher academic achievement. Qualitative data supported this, revealing that students valued the educational benefits of paper-based tests for reinforcing and consolidating knowledge, despite challenges and anxiety being common themes. Conversely, gamified student response systems like Kahoot and Socrative were found to enhance engagement and motivation due to their fun and interactive nature, though they also induced anxiety.