Do Gamified Activities Influence Students’ Motivation in an Introductory Research Methods Course?

Courses focusing on research methodology improve students’ understanding of evidence-based approaches. However, coupled with potential mathematics and statistics anxiety, such courses may require instructors to utilize specific strategies targeting learners’ motivation. We employed gamified activities in a course introducing undergraduate students to quantitative research methodology with the goal of targeting students’ intrinsic motivation as defined by the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Blended with traditional didactic lectures on epidemiologic principles and concepts, we incorporated these activities within one section of this course and used another section as a comparison group in which no gamified activities were utilized. At the end of the semester, students in both course sections completed a survey answering questions related to their level of perceived satisfaction of the psychological needs of SDT (competence, relatedness, and autonomy) and overall intrinsic motivation. We observed that the intervention group (N = 29) had a higher level of satisfaction of each psychological need and overall intrinsic motivation compared to the control group (N = 38), however, overall, these results were statistically significant only for the psychological need of competence. While our results suggest that gamification may be linked to students’ motivation, future studies with larger sample sizes should examine other factors that might impact learners’ motivation.