Online gamification as a tool for increasing learners' engagement in the Greek EFL contexts

Abstract

The last decade gamification has become a popular educational tool. An increasing number of EFL teachers integrate it into their lessons to create real life situations, improve learner’s experience in classroom and promote their engagement. This innovative practice is sug- gested in this study as an effective teaching aid to overcome the deficiencies of Greek EFL textbooks to follow the communicative guidelines of the curricula. The purpose of this dis- sertation is to examine learners’ perception on whether the application of online gamifica- tion in Greek EFL contexts can enhance their skill and interaction engagement. The inves- tigation is based on the research model developed by Ahmad et al. (2018) to investigate learners’ acceptance towards gamification and its effect towards their engagement. The ba- sis of this model was the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis et al. (1989) and Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (SCEQ) by Handelsman et al. (2005). The model consists of five variables: Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Attitude to- wards using gamification technology, Skills Engagement, and Interaction Engagement. The relevant literature of ICTs and gamification is also reviewed. The participants were seventy learners of the Junior High school of Kassandra. They were exposed to gamified lessons during the first semester to develop their grammatical competence. The questionnaire pro- posed by Ahmad et al. (2018) was used to collect data and the analysis reveal that per- ceived usefulness affects positively learners’ attitude and skill engagement. Additionally, learners’ attitude has a statistically significant impact on both skill and interaction engage- ment. Also, the more students develop their skill engagement, the more they develop their interaction engagement and vice versa. Lastly, perceived ease of use is not a factor that can influence learners’ opinion on online gamification.