Influence of Gamification Elements on Emotion, Interest and Online Participation

With the development of technology, digital games have now been favored by a growing number of people. This increase in the popularity of digital games is mostly associated not only with the interesting designs of the digital games but also with the emotional satisfaction with these games. In recent years, this tendency towards digital games has led to the transfer of certain features of games to non-game contexts. The concept named gamification refers to the adaptation of game features to non-game contexts. Gamification has been in use in many areas in recent years. One of these areas is the field of education. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of elements of gamification in blended learning environments within the context of emotion, interest and online participation. In the study, the convergent parallel mixed design, which allowed explaining the quantitative and qualitative data in association with each other, was used. In this respect, the study was carried out with 63 university students (30 students in the experimental group and 33 students in the control group) in a period of 13 weeks. In the research process, the two groups of students were provided with the opportunity to experience the blended learning environment both on face-to-face basis and on online basis. The experimental group differed from the control group in terms of such gamification elements presented in face-to-face and online environments as being given directives, progress bar, badge, level, experience point, leaderboard, award, completion rate, activity completion, activity restriction and activity feedback. According to the data collected in the study, gamification elements used in blended learning environments have caused the participants to develop both positive and negative emotions. In addition, it was revealed that gamification was found interesting by the participants Moreover, it was seen that there was a significant difference between the times spent by the groups in terms of their participation in online environment in favor of the experimental group. In addition, it was found that award, competition, level, badge and restriction were influential on the students’ participation in online environment.