The Effects of Gamified Daily Awards on Digital Vocabulary Flashcard Learning: A Case Study

Abstract

Gamification in second language acquisition research is a popular topic, but there are few empirical comparative studies in the literature. This quasi-experimental mixed-approach study enrolled 77 Japanese university EFL learners to enable a comparison between two digital vocabulary flashcard learning software conditions carefully designed by the author; the gamified group’s software (group 1; n = 26) had daily awards (i.e., consecutive day awards, medals related to daily participation, and a bonus point counter in an effort to encourage spaced learning principles and discourage cramming) and the non-gamified group’s (group 0; n = 51) did not. The daily awards had a significant effect in encouraging the gamified group to spread out their study efforts throughout the 12-week study period more effectively than the control group as they completed a lower median number of tasks per active study day (non-gamified: 104.76, gamified: 82.11; p = .021, r(75) = –.264) but studied on more days to complete a similar total number of vocabulary tasks (non-gamified: 2313.00, gamified: 2228.50; p = .601). Moreover, the gamified group significantly outperformed the non-gamified group in terms of vocabulary knowledge score gains between the pretest and posttest; p = .03, r(50) = .300. These results show the numerous and significant positive pedagogical impacts of gamified daily awards.