The effect of gamification on student participation and success in teaching programming with Scratch

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of gamification in teaching programming with Scratch on student participation and success in the course. In this research, mixed research method was used, in which quantitative and qualitative research was used together to measure the effect of gamification in teaching programming with Scratch. "Pretest-posttest design with non-equivalent control group" was used in the study to obtain quantitative data. To obtain qualitative data, teacher opinions were used. The participants of the research are 9th grade students in the field of information technologies studying at Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in the fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. 9th grade students in the field were divided into two groups, the experimental group and the control group, according to the class list. The quantitative data collection tool used in the research is the Scratch academic achievement test. The data collection tool was developed by the researcher. In the process of teaching programming with Scratch, the experimental group received training with the gamification approach, while the control group received training using the traditional method with direct explanation and demonstration approach. Scratch 3.0 was used as a block-based programming tool. ClassDojo was used as a gamification tool. When the "Block-based programming" unit was started, the achievement test was applied to the experimental and control groups as a pretest. During the 4-week application, gamification components such as points, badges and leaderboards were used in the lesson every week. Teacher interviews were used to measure students' participation in the lesson. Upon completion of the subject teaching, data was collected by applying the achievement test as a posttest to both groups. The data obtained within the scope of the research were analyzed through the SPSS 22.00 statistical program. To detect significant differences between the experimental and control groups, the Mann-Whitney U test, one of the non-parametric tests, and the independent group t test, one of the parametric tests, were used. In the study, as a result of the application of the gamification program in teaching programming with Scratch, it was concluded that there was a significant difference between the groups in favor of the experimental group. It was also concluded that the gamification approach increased students' participation in the course.