A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM PARTICIPATION IN GAMIFIED LESSONS ON ASSESSMENT PERFORMANCE

Abstract Gamification has been used by teachers as a tool to review basic concepts learnt by students in traditional as well as in flipped classrooms. This technology offers students the ability to participate either individually or in teams to solve problems within the given time constraints with points awarded or deducted for the answers provided, and the chance to finish the game on top of a leaderboard, which provides motivation for students to actively engage with the game. This research aims to compare the effects of engaging in gamified lessons individually and in pairs on students’ summative assessment scores. An experiment was conducted in which two groups of students used Quizizz, an online lesson gamification tool, with one group participating in online quiz games on 3 different topics individually, whilst the other group participated in pairs. Both groups were then provided the same summative assessment on these topics to attempt and the results of this were analyzed and compared for both groups to establish the effects of individual versus paired participation in gamified lessons. Data on average points scored and time taken per question for both groups was analyzed using MS Excel, along with graphical comparisons of performances between male and female students and comparisons of scores in the formative and summative assessments taken. This research found that the group of students participating in pairs in the online formative assessment performed better than the group of students participating individually but there was no significant difference between both groups in the summative assessment.