As it unfolds: Exploring the impact of team-based gamification on performance, confidence, and engagement

The study explored the impact of a team-based leaderboard on students’ performance, confidence, and engagement in an in-class, multiple-choice quiz with two phases (voting/revoting). A total of 103 Psychology students volunteered to participate and were assigned to a control (one non-gamified team) or a gamified condition (two competing teams whose scores were shown on the leaderboard). During voting, the students
answered the quiz and denoted their levels of confidence and wrote short justifications for their answers. The same quiz questions were used in revoting, while the tallied answers of their teammates, their level of confidence, and the justifications written for each of the question choices were shown. Results showed that the losing team was outperformed in all aspects of the study by the winning and the control teams, which were comparable to each other.

Educational relevance and implications statement: A team-based leaderboard was used to enhance social relatedness and avoid intrateam friction. The losing team demonstrated lower performance, confidence, and engagement, while the winning team was comparable to the non-gamified, control team. Students more positive to gamification in terms of competitiveness, experience, or preference experienced a larger negative impact from gamification. The implications of the study are that (a) team-based gamification may have a detrimental effect on
students’ performance, confidence, and engagement, and (b) students’ individual characteristics related to gamification may interact with the gamification setting.