The effect of project-based gamification on fifth grade students' coding skills and course engagement

This study aims to examine the impact of project-based gamification on 5th-grade students' coding skills and class participation. The study followed an experimental process and applied as a pretest-posttest control group design. While the experimental group of 38 students taught the "Problem Solving and Programming" unit of the Information Technologies and Software course with project-based gamified methods, the Web-Based Tutorial Model method was adopted for the control group students of 38 students. In the research, the coding skills test (academic achievement test), which had permission from the developers, and the Participation Scale adapted to the Information Technologies and Software Course, were used as data collection tools. After the research, it was found that the use of project-based gamification significantly increased the participants' academic achievement by 78%, 19% of which was due to the use of a teaching method, 22% of which was due to the measurement being made at different times, and increased their participation in the lesson to a limited extent, 30% of which was due to the measurement time. It was concluded that project-based gamification activities have a statistically meaningful positive effect on students' academic achievement and engagements, and that experimental studies with more participants are needed to measure students' course engagement. The study and with recommendations regarding combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies that include different gamification components and students' views on gamification.