Boosting Student's Motivation through Gamification in Physical Education

Students are becoming less motivated towards current education. For this reason, teachers are investigating several innovative methodologies to learn how they affect student motivation, such as gamification. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of gamification on the motivation of elementary physical education students. A total of 72 elementary school students from two different Spanish elementary schools participated (38 boys and 34 girls), separated into a gamified group (n = 35) and a control group (n = 37). Ten gamification sessions were performed using a technological app called ClassDojo. The gamified proposal was based on both a PBL model and an MDA model. A questionnaire, "Motivation Questionnaire in Physical Education" (CMEF-EP) was used to measure the motivation of the students before and after the intervention. An increase was observed in all the variables for the gamified group: intrinsic motivation (p < 0.001), identified regulation (p < 0.001), introjected regulation (p = 0.001), and external regulation (p = 0.002), except for the amotivation (p = 0.120). No changes were observed in the control group. A significant interaction effect over time was seen only for intrinsic motivation for the gamified group versus the control group (F(1) = 5.263; p = 0.025; η² = 0.070). The results show the efficacy of gamification to increase the motivation of elementary physical education students. However, it does not decrease amotivation. This will enable the subject to contribute to achieving the United Nations' proposed Sustainable Development Goal 4, which is to 'Improve Quality Education'.