La gamificación como estrategia para mejorar la calidad educativa en la Educación Básica

This research aimed to analyze the impact of gamification as a pedagogical strategy to improve educational quality among students in General Basic Education in Ecuador. The main objective was to evaluate how this methodology influences motivation, academic performance, and the development of socio-educational competencies. The study was framed within a positivist paradigm and employed a quasi-experimental design with a control group and an experimental group, using a representative sample of 400 students selected through proportional stratified sampling. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire administered in pre-test and post-test phases, and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including Student’s t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Findings showed that gamification significantly increased student motivation, improved performance on standardized tests, and strengthened social competencies related to collaboration and classroom participation. The experimental group demonstrated considerable improvement across all evaluated dimensions compared to the control group, confirming the proposed hypothesis. It is concluded that integrating gamification fosters more dynamic, inclusive, and effective teaching-learning processes in Basic Education, providing valuable tools to transform traditional pedagogical practices. Recommendations include promoting teacher training in this methodology, enhancing technological infrastructure in schools, and expanding future research to diverse contexts to ensure scalability and adaptation of the strategy. These results contribute to strengthening educational quality in Ecuador in alignment with the goals of the 2030 Agenda.