The effects of project-based learning and gamification approaches on academic achievement, retention and affective goals of foreign language teaching in primary school English language teaching

This study aims to to investigate how Project-based learning and gamification can impact the academic achievement, knowledge retention and affective goals of fourth-grade students in their English course. In this study, data were collected using quantitative methods. Qualitative methods were also used to support the quantitative data. In line with the research aims, quantitative data were collected from a sample of 66 participants. To gain deeper understandings of the quantitaive data, interviews were conducted with 18 students. Demographic information form, Academic Achievement Test, Affective Goal Scale and an open-ended question form for participants to freely express their thoughts and feedback were used as data collection tools. The current study was conducted during the autumn term of the 2022-2023 academic year in a primary school located in the central disctict of Niğde. Experimental and control groups were assigned randomly; gamification teaching activities in Experiment 1 class and project-based teaching activities in Experiment 2 class were applied in English lessons for five weeks. In the control group class, the students were taught using the activities from the guidebooks that follow the National Education Curriculum. A total of 66 students (29 female; 37 male) participated in the study. In this study conducted with the experimental and control groups, the Academic Achievement Test was applied to the experimental and control groups as pre-test, post-test and retention test, and the Affective Goals of Teaching Foreign Languages to Children Scale was applied to the experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS software. On the qualitative side, the data obtained from the open-ended questionnaire were analysed using descriptive analysis. When the analyses were examined, a statistically significant difference was found between the groups in Affective Goals Scale posttest scores but no statistically significant difference was found between the groups in Academic Achievement Test posttest scores. Further tests were carried out to understand between which groups the difference between the Affective Goals Scale post-test scores was between, and as a result, it was observed that the gamification approach revealed significant differences. By evaluating the effects of gamification and project-based methods in English language teaching at primary school level, the findings can guide teachers in providing effective and student-focused teaching strategies. Future research can increase knowledge in this area to understand the long-term effects of different teaching approaches and to identify the most effective methods in children's language learning process.