Research pick: Racing through English - "Tracking English language learners’ progress through a gamified social visualisation tool to increase motivation and performance"

Researchers writing in the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, have demonstrated how a gamified social visualisation tool might be used to boost motivation and improve performance among English learners.

Wala Bagunaid, Maram Meccawy, Zilal Meccawy, and Arwa A. Allinjawi of both the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology and King Abdulaziz University and the English Language Institute at King Abdulaziz University, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, point out that it is not only educators who need to be able to monitor student progress but the students themselves.

Given that university classes can be very large, especially when online teaching is also taken into consideration, instructors are not necessarily able to provide individual students with progress reports other than on separate assignments and exam results. Also, given that current e-learning tools often mask student data to protect privacy, for example, students therefore only have limited access to their progress aside from their own subjective opinions of how well they are proceeding through a course.

The team presents a novel tool based on a racing car game that allows the students to glean information about their progress without compromising privacy. The approach offers a useful tool for monitoring student progress especially for those studying through distance learning through choice and for those pushed into the online learning environment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and any future crises.

The team demonstrated that in the English as a foreign language (EFL) education environment, the gamification tool showed that revealed EFL students were more motivated to catch up with their peers and win the race. Moreover, the tool showed where individuals might be lagging behind so that they could focus on particular areas and accelerate their performance in those areas. The team also found that students were happy to use the tool and would continue to use it throughout their education if they were to be given that option.

Bagunaid, W., Meccawy, M., Meccawy, Z. and Allinjawi, A.A. (2022) ‘Tracking English language learners’ progress through a gamified social visualisation tool to increase motivation and performance’, Int. J. Technology Enhanced Learning, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.286–306.