Investigating achievement, attitude and motivation in a gamified English course

Gamification can be defined as using game design elements in non-game contexts. Although most of the studies indicate that gamification has a positive impact on achievement, some of them claim that the effect is not statistically significant. Therefore, there is a need for further studies on achievement. This study aims to investigate whether a gamified learning environment has an impact on students' academic achievement, motivation as well as attitudes towards gamification, and whether the effects differ according to their course achievement level or not. The research is planned as a weak experimental study with a one-group pretest–posttest design. Within the scope of the study, English lessons were gamified and applied for 5 weeks with 36 students studying in the first year of associate degree programs of a foundation university. Data was collected through pre-post achievement tests, an open-ended questionnaire, an attitude and a motivation scale. The study revealed that gamification had an impact on achievement, but this effect was not different for students having different course achievement levels. Students' attitude was positive and their motivation was high but there was no significant difference between groups. Considering the students' views, it can be said that the competition in gamified lesson was reacted positively, gamified lesson was found interesting and fun by the students, and it was effective in terms of motivating students for the lesson, supporting their learning, providing sociality, improving their self-confidence as well as participation in the lesson. Keywords: gamification, student achievement, attitude, motivation, game elements