The Effects of Gamification on Students' Flow Experience

Abstract

Background: Gamification has been used in recent years to enhance the student experience in educational environments and to help students achieve an optimal experience. However, there is limited empirical evidence of the effects of gamification on specific psychological experiences, such as the students' flow experience, which is a highly motivating state associated with the learning process. Objectives: To address this gap, we examined the impact of gamification on students' flow experience within a learning management system. Methods: We conducted a controlled between-subjects experiment (N = 65) in which participants in the experimental group interacted with a gamified version of the system, which incorporated a typical gamification design consisting of a collection of various game elements that constituted a form of meta-game interaction around the learning activity (as opposed to, for example, serious games or game-based learning). In contrast, the participants in the control group used the same system with the same educational tasks but without gamification. We used descriptive and inferential statistical methods (i.e., Mann–Whitney U test) to compare the students' flow experience between the groups. Results and Conclusions: The results reveal that the influence of gamification on students' flow experience was not statistically significant. These findings suggest that current gamification designs may not effectively facilitate flow in educational contexts, highlighting the need for further research and development to align gamification with desired educational outcomes.