Storified quizzes in the classroom: a 12-week study in user experience and artificial intelligence courses

Abstract

Embedding game elements such as narrative and storytelling into learning activities is known as content gamification. Research argues content gamification might lead to improvements in psychological learning outcomes (e.g., motivation and preference). However, there is a lack of research experi- menting with content gamification in real educational settings. This paper ad-dresses this gap with a 12-week quasi-experimental study that compares content gamification to no gamification during real User Experience (UX) and Artifi-cial Intelligence (AI) courses. Specifically, we used a narrative framework to storify classroom quizzes and analyze gamification’s and contextual moderators’ roles in students’ learning experiences. Overall, the results indicate that content gamification did not positively affect students, and exploratory analyses suggest that AI students favored the standard quizzes. In contrast, UX students preferred the gamified quizzes, and their preferences changed over time. These findings contribute to practitioners and researchers by providing empirical evidence on how content gamification affects learning experiences in real contexts, compared to no gamification, revealing important considerations for designing, applying, and researching content gamification, especially as storified quizzes.