Using Gamification to Improve Student Engagement of African-American Middle-School Students from Low-Socioeconomic-Status Households

Abstract

This quantitative research project sought to increase the student engagement of seventh- and eighth-grade African-American students from low-income homes by introducing gamification as a wraparound intervention. During the 5 weeks of the program, 150 students worked in teams to earn points by completing classwork assignments and winning two different student challenges. Results were tracked on a visible leaderboard posted in the classroom. The Student Engagement Inventory, which measures student engagement on six different engagement indicators, was used as the pretest and posttest. Specifically, the intervention activities addressed three particular indicators of engagement—teacher-student relationships, control and perceived relevance of schoolwork, and peer support for learning. According to the resulting p values from the overlapping-samples t tests, the peer connections indicator of the Student Engagement Inventory was most impacted by the gamification intervention with African-American students, showing statistically significant changes for five of the six questions—the implication being that students felt more connected to each other as a result of the gamification intervention. This study demonstrates that middle-school African-American students from low-income homes have needs that set them apart from their classmates of other ethnic groups and of other socioeconomic tiers. Suggestions for future studies include isolating specific game mechanics to observe their effects on this demographic and qualitative studies from the student and teacher perspective.