Chemquest1 : do gaming strategies affect student engagement and motivation in the chemistry classroom?

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of a particular set of gaming strategies on student motivation and engagement in learning chemistry. ChemQuest1 was designed to use game elements such as leaderboards, experience points, guilds and tasks to engage students in learning chemistry. The results indicate a significant increase in student confidence in their ability to be successful in chemistry when compared to students in lecture based On Level chemistry classes. Students enrolled in ChemQuest1 performed well on most teacher constructed tests, however they did not perform as well on standardized tests where they could not retake the test and improve their scores.