GAMIFICATION IN PRESENTATION AND TESTING AND THEIR EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether presentation and testing methods, conducted in traditional and gamified manners, would affect the performance on standard or gamified tests for college students. This study was conducted to examine if motivation and engagement derived from gamified conditions would lead to better performance on tests. Both gamified presentation and gamified testing was used to see if using similar testing methods would affect performance on the tests. This study was conducted using a participant pool of 100 students from a public Midwestern university, though 9 were dropped from analyses. Participants went through a traditional presentation or a game-based presentation followed by a traditional or game-based test to examine their performance. An MANCOVA was run on the data collected, and while the overall model was not significant, presentation and testing methods were found to affect participants first attempts on a test, as well as the covariate of Cognitive Engagement was found to have an effect on the highest score participants would earn in up to five attempts on a test. While participants did not significantly perform better in the gamified groups, they did express greater interest in the game-based presentations and tests, as well as in the use of gamification in classrooms.