Document Type : Original Research Paper-English Issue
Authors
Department of Educational Technology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Background and Objectives Learning reading and writing skills in the first grade is crucial and fundamental. It has always been considered highly important for students to learn these skills at an early age. By learning to read in elementary school, students can accurately and comprehensively read various texts, including words, sentences, and simple texts. Strengthening their reading skills enables students to understand and benefit from the information available in books, newspapers, magazines, and other resources, which is essential for effective learning and progress in different subjects. Moreover, learning writing skills is also of great importance in the first grade. With this skill, students can express their thoughts, ideas, and experiences fully and accurately. They can arrange sentences in a logical order, use correct grammar rules, and form paragraphs correctly. This fundamental skill is crucial for written communication in the future and helps students develop strong analytical skills, creativity, and oral communication abilities. Engaging students in the learning process is one of the major challenges faced by teachers. Therefore, the use of an engaging learning method has become a concern for teachers in the field of teaching and learning. This study aimed to investigate the impact of gamification with badges on reading and writing skills as well as academic engagement among first-grade elementary school students.
Materials and Methods: The research population consisted of all female first-grade students in Qazvin province during the academic year 2020-2021. A cluster sampling method was used to select the sample from different classes across the city. The sample size included three groups of 25 students each, divided into two experimental groups (gamification with badges and gamification without badges) and one control group. The research design employed a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The research instruments included researcher-developed reading and writing skill tests and the Rio Academic Engagement Questionnaire. The reliability of each measure was calculated using Cronbach's alpha. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data, including means and standard deviations, while inferential statistics included Analysis of Covariance and Tukey's post hoc test using SPSS software.
Findings: The results of the Analysis of Covariance indicated that the use of gamification had a significant effect on reading skills (F = 6.166, p< 0.003) and writing skills (F = 4.88, p< 0.010), as well as academic engagement (behavioral: F = 134.462, p < 0.000; emotional: F = 43.546, p< 0.000; cognitive: F = 348.598, p< 0.000; and agentic: F = 349.853, p< 0.000). Furthermore, Tukey's post hoc test revealed that the gamification with badges group outperformed the gamification without badges group in three subscales of the academic engagement (behavioral, agentic, and cognitive).
Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrated that the use of gamification had a positive impact on reading and writing skills as well as academic engagement among elementary school students. Some recommendations include utilizing gamification strategies to create interactive, engaging, and lively learning environments, designing gamified learning environments to enhance motivation, participation, collaboration, and engagement, and exploring the effects of gamification (e.g., leaderboard) on increasing students' teamwork abilities.
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COPYRIGHTS
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
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