Gamification of Mathematics Instruction: A Quantitative Study on Student Growth and Proficiency in a Suburban Middle School

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if a statistically significant difference existed in student growth and proficiency scores between students receiving gamified math instruction compared to those receiving non-gamified math instruction in a suburban middle school in Tennessee. This investigation is based on the theoretical construct of the Toda et al. (2019) gamification taxonomy that is categorized into 5 dimensions: performance, ecological, social, personal, and fictional. This study consisted of 133 sixth-grade students in two math classes. An independent-samples t test was utilized to determine if the treatment group (n = 67) performed statistically significantly different than the control group (n = 66) after undergoing ten days of gamified or non-gamified mathematics instruction on ratios. The results from the independent-samples t-test revealed that there was no statistical difference between groups in student proficiency in math. However, student growth in math was statistically significantly different between groups (p = .000009, α = .001). Students who received gamified math instruction had higher growth scores than students who received non-gamified math instruction. The findings from this quantitative study suggest avenues for future research and present contextual implications for practice that could benefit teacher education programs, administrators, educators, and students.