Abstract

Lack of student motivation is a detrimental problem in foreign language education. This problem may lead to less target language production and lower proficiency. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the effect of change in student motivation when a gamified intervention is implemented. This study was conducted in an English foreign language course at a secondary school in the inner city of Temuco, Chile. Student motivation was measured by using a 22 item, self-reporting questionnaire with a six-point Likert scale. A total of 53 students participated in this study. A quantitative analysis indicated that the experimental group scored higher on the questionnaire in all but one of the items. An independent sample t-test indicated that 19 of the items that scored higher were statistically significant. These results show that the use of a gamified intervention can positively affect student motivation