Examining the effects of leaderboards in gamified learning environment

Gamification is widely defined as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts. Recent years have witnessed a significant growth of gamification studies, and the most commonly used game elements among the studies are the leaderboards. Research findings on the effects of leaderboards so far have been mixed. On one hand, previous studies have shown that leaderboards can motivate participants to perform more tasks and improve their learning performance. On the other hand, leaderboards can also demotivate participants in completing their learning activities. This study aims to systematically investigate the effects of different variations of leaderboards using experimental designs in the higher education context. More specifically, this study will manipulate three main independent variables-anonymity of learners’ identity, learners’ ranking position, and learners’ group size on a leaderboard. The dependent variables include participant academic performance, course engagement, participant intrinsic motivation and participant perception. Three hypotheses will be proposed and tested. Copyright © 2019 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.