social problem solving kahoot

• Open access
• Published: 21 July 2018

Students’ perception of Kahoot!’s influence on teaching and learning

• Sherlock A. Licorish   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7318-2421 1 ,
• Helen E. Owen 2 ,
• Ben Daniel 3 &
• Jade Li George 1  

Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning volume  13 , Article number:  9 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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Technology is being increasingly integrated into teaching environments in view of enhancing students’ engagement and motivation. In particular, game-based student response systems have been found to foster students’ engagement, enhance classroom dynamics and improve overall students’ learning experience. This article presents outcomes of research that examined students’ experience using a game-based student response system, Kahoot!, in an Information Systems Strategy and Governance course at a research-intensive teaching university in New Zealand. We conducted semi-structured interviews with students to learn about the extent to which Kahoot! influence classroom dynamics, motivation and students’ learning process. Key findings revealed that Kahoot! enriched the quality of student learning in the classroom, with the highest influence reported on classroom dynamics, engagement, motivation and improved learning experience. Our findings also suggest that the use of educational games in the classroom is likely to minimise distractions, thereby improving the quality of teaching and learning beyond what is provided in conventional classrooms. Other factors that contributed to students’ enhanced learning included the creation and integration of appropriate content in Kahoot!, providing students with timely feedback, and game-play (gamification) strategies.

Introduction

The rapid increase in the availability and affordability of interactive technologies has contributed to the adoption of games in instructional science and higher education teaching to foster collaborative learning, exploration and discovery (e.g. Ebner and Holzinger 2007 ; Papastergiou 2009 ). Students are eager to experiment with different technologies to support their learning, largely because they are skilled in the use of mobile technology and enjoy using applications and games designed for such devices (Prensky 2001 ). Educational games and game-based student response systems (GSRS; gamification techniques integrated into student response systems) both increase student motivation and engagement (e.g. Barrio et al. 2016 ; Wang and Lieberoth 2016 ), especially in circumstances where conventional lecture style or “chalk and talk” teaching are resented by students and induce boredom (Cheong et al. 2013 ; Graham 2015 ; Roehl et al. 2013 ).

Indeed, in New Zealand universities, maintaining students’ attention and engagement can be difficult in Information Science lectures, as the classes can be teacher-centred, with limited student participation and on-task peer interaction. Lecturers usually have limited awareness of students’ knowledge base at both an individual or even class level (Exeter et al. 2010 ). Consequently, students become increasingly bored and engage in off-task behaviour, such as doodling on their lecture notes and using social media on their mobiles and laptops. It is plausible that integrating GSRSs in lectures to test and teach students’ course knowledge will increase their engagement and learning and increase on-task mobile use behaviour.

Furthermore, according to the socio-cultural phenomenon known as the “Tall Poppy syndrome” (Feather 1989 ), New Zealand (and Australian) students are reticent to demonstrate their knowledge, ask and answer questions posed by the lecturer publically for fear of being perceived as attention-seeking and boastful by others, and ostracised by their peers (Tapper 2014 ). To conform to the social norms prescribed by the lecture environment, students rarely ask public questions and prefer to remain anonymous, particularly in large lectures (Exeter et al. 2010 ), thus likely reducing student engagement. Such an environment that supports the social ostracism of “tall poppies” (or high academic achievers) increases individual’s decision-making avoidance (Dediu 2015 ), which may also negatively impact on deep learning. However, GSRSs’ use allows students to remain anonymous while interacting with others and acquiring new knowledge (e.g. Wang 2015 ).

The use of educational games as learning tools (e.g. video games) is found to support the development of students’ cognitive, motivational, emotional and social outlook (e.g. Papastergiou 2009 ; Siegle 2015 ). However, they are better suited to smaller classrooms with elementary and high school students (see, for instance, Jui-Mei et al. 2011 ) rather than university students who have to achieve specific learning outcomes through course work delivered in medium to large lectures. Footnote 1 Thus, in the present study, we distinguish between game-based learning, a pedagogical approach in which games are used to achieve educational outcomes through incidental learning, and gamification techniques, an integration of game elements in non-gaming systems (e.g. SRSs), which engage students and improve the experiential nature of active, intentional learning (Deterding et al. 2011 ; Ebner and Holzinger 2007 ; Huotari and Hamari 2012 ; Leaning 2015 ). Contrary to educational games, gamification elements are more easily incorporated into student response systems in mid to large lectures, leading to the development of GSRSs (Plump and LaRosa 2017 ). Although the gamification process is not new in education, the technologies that are supporting these interventions have been evolving, from single use to collaborative and distributed contexts (Holmes and Gee 2016 ). Thus, in the present study, we focus more specifically on the role of GSRSs on student engagement, motivation and learning.

Early use of gamification elements in education appeared to improve student response systems (SRSs), with promising outcomes, but limited impact on engagement and motivation (Wang 2015 ). SRSs are frequently used to display multiple-choice questions to offer opportunities for students to interactively answer quizzes in classrooms as part of a formative assessment regime (e.g. Sellar 2011 ). However, Kay and LeSage ( 2009 ) pointed out that the key challenges relating to the use of these technologies include the time needed to learn and setup these technologies, creating appropriate content, and providing students with useful and timely feedback. With the wide spread use of gamification in the learning environment, there has been a noticeable shift from student response systems such as “iClicker” and “Poll Everywhere” to more contemporary game-based student response systems (GSRSs) such as Kahoot! and Socrative (Plump and LaRosa 2017 ; Wang 2015 ).

GSRSs are an example of a gamification approach that makes use of game principles and student response systems tools to support learning, engagement, motivation and fun during the learning process. The use of GSRSs in the form of gamification requires participants to activate previous knowledge and assess their performance as they play and learn the content of a subject (Méndez and Slisko 2013 ; Plump and LaRosa 2017 ). GSRSs enhance students’ attention, motivation, engagement and enjoyment beyond traditional methods (Barrio et al. 2016 ; Wang and Lieberoth 2016 ). They also promote autonomy in learning as students can operate GSRSs on their mobile devices. Similar to earlier interventions involving SRSs, GSRSs improve overall class attendance (Cardwell 2007 ; Kay and LeSage 2009 ), but at an individual level, they also motivate students who may not normally participate in class discussion (Wang 2015 ). Furthermore, lecturers found GSRSs to be useful teaching tools in supporting personalisation of learning (Wang 2015 ). Thus, teachers have been encouraged to incorporate gamification into their classroom environments.

The potential effectiveness of GSRSs may be understood through Novak’s ( 1998 ) model of meaningful learning, which distinguishes between students’ deep and surface learning approaches. The model conceptualises learning as a process in which teachers select meaningful material for students based on their existing knowledge (see also Hay 2007 ). Next, teachers encourage students to engage in deeper learning rather than rote memorising, which occurs during GSRS use. This requires student to experiment, reflect and evaluate knowledge (see also Kolb and Fry 1975 ) and receive feedback through the follow-up (post-game) discussions. Students who have been taught through deep learning strategies (such as GSRS use) become highly engaged and, as a result, are able to apply their deep learning strategies to their study practices. For example, by relating course information to everyday behaviours and their own experiences, and through elaboration of the lecture content. In contrast, when lecturers promote shallow learning strategies and rote memorization strategies (associated with conventional, didactic teaching), their students are more likely to be disengaged and are less likely to have the “tools” and strategies they need for deep learning (Marton and Säljö 1976 ; Exeter et al. 2010 ). This theoretical model suggests that because GSRS promotes greater engagement, learning may increase beyond what would be expected from traditional methods.

To understand the potential effectiveness of GSRSs as learning tools, we can also generalise from game-based learning models, namely the Experiential Gaming Model (Kiili 2005 ). Similar to Novak’s ( 1998 ) model of meaningful learning, this model posits that students learn through direct experience and reflective observation, which, in turn, induces experiences of “flow”, characterised by (but not limited to) concentration and complete absorption (Csikszentmihalyi 1975 , 1991 ), as long as the task difficulty is set slightly above that of the students’ skill level (Kiili 2005 ), and the interfaces are user-friendly and do not detract attention from the task (Finneran and Zhang 2003 ). More specifically, students are presented with challenges that require completion based on clear goals. They engage in the generation and testing of ideas during problem-solving, with a process monitored through feedback. Students then use the feedback to reflect on successful vs unsuccessful problem-solving strategies, and form schemas about how knowledge can be used in the future. Because GSRSs lack the game-play simulation, students are unlikely to experience some characteristics of flow (e.g. complete absorption and loss of self-consciousness); however, “game play” is not vital for this experiential learning process to occur as other learning platforms such as computer-based tutors also promote reflection on feedback and knowledge consolidation (e.g. Aleven and Koedinger 2002 ; Baker et al. 2010 ). Indeed, GSRSs facilitate the key experiential components of flow: challenges, clear goals, real-time feedback and playfulness (Kay and LeSage 2009 ; Malone 1980 ; Plump and LaRosa 2017 ), which increase concentration and sense of control and create the optimal learning environment.

One such GSRS, Kahoot! allows teachers to draw on course content to construct quizzes in which students participate as players in a “game-show” (Wang 2015 ), thus integrating gamification principles (e.g. audio and a score board with a points system) into an informal assessment procedure. Plump and LaRosa ( 2017 ) found that Kahoot! was easy for teachers to use in their classroom and required no prior training to implement. For instance, teachers can easily utilise Kahoot! to project quiz questions as regular lecture slides to which students respond using a web browser on their digital devices. Quizzes can be enhanced with images and videos, and the teacher is able to control the pace of play. Students are awarded points for answering questions correctly, and the timeliness of correct responses also impacts the points awarded. Displaying students’ points on the screen motivates students to get to the top of the leader board. Kahoot!, like other GSRSs, fosters motivation and engagement (Barrio et al. 2016 ; Wang and Lieberoth 2016 ) and improves classroom dynamics as the system provides students with real-time feedback of their performance, and to some extent adapt teaching activities based on students’ responses to quizzes (Plump and LaRosa 2017 ). Moreover, the anonymous aspect of Kahoot! also implies that students’ privacy is not easily compromised. In addition, since Kahoot! incorporates social media, it enables students to create, share and exchange content with others in the class, and hence, fosters a sense of community (Wang 2015 ). Further, time constraints are minimal as Kahoot! collates and aggregates individual responses to questions within minutes. Therefore, teachers can focus on designing questions, administering the quiz, and, afterwards, facilitating discussion about the (in)correct responses.

The gamification (“game-show”) process of Kahoot! does not change, which may increase teachers’ concerns over student boredom. However, unlike other computer-mediated learning tools and games, the questions and problem-solving strategies vary with each Kahoot! usage based on the students’ needs. Furthermore, Kahoot!s only last for a short duration. Kahoot! draws from Malone’s ( 1980 ) “theory of intrinsic motivation” by challenging students with difficult problem-solving tasks in an audio-visually stimulating environment. The fantasy “game-show” environment further increases their absorption during problem-solving compared to other computer-mediated learning tools. Indeed, Kahoot! has a greater impact on interpersonal interactions than Socrative, allowing competition and discussion to occur between an entire class rather than in small groups (see, for instance, Méndez and Slisko 2013 ), and is therefore unlikely to induce boredom. Although complex concepts in the course material may increase students’ frustration during Kahoot!, these experiences are unlikely to persist for a long period of time (e.g. Baker et al. 2010 ). In fact, temporary experiences of frustration enhance enjoyability (Gee 2004 ). Kahoot! not only targets users’ needs for challenge and fantasy, but also promotes students’ sensory curiosity through surface-level gamification features (e.g. suspenseful music and colour displays), and their cognitive curiosity through the problem-solving process and real-time feedback. Therefore, Kahoot! was our chosen GSRS on which to explore the way such tools impact students’ motivation, engagement and learning.

However, despite strong evidence that Kahoot! and other GSRSs increase student attention, motivation and engagement, it remains unclear whether Kahoot! leads to greater learning outcomes than traditional methods and SRSs (e.g. Méndez and Slisko 2013 ; Plump and LaRosa 2017 ). While previous work has examined students’ feedback on the use of Kahoot! (Barrio et al. 2016 ; Wang 2015 ), such evidence has been driven largely from more quantitative measures, with limited reliability and validity. In addition, Likert-driven quantitative measures often provide insights into a phenomenon (what students think) rather than the depth (how students experience the phenomenon). The fact that Kahoot! is rarely researched in the university setting is also noteworthy, as at this level students are often more likely to be vocal in their learning experience. It would thus be pertinent to understand how such a tool would be received by university students, and particularly if there would be improvement in learning experiences where students tend to participate less. The present study utilised a qualitative inquiry to explore students’ learning experience using Kahoot! The aim is to explore classroom dynamics, students’ engagement, motivation and learning.

The remaining sections of this article are organised as follows. In the next subsection we present the study background, which leads to the identification and presentation of the research problem, and the research questions. The “ Methods ” section presents the details of the research methods and procedures. The “ Results ” section presents findings of the study. In the “ Discussion ” section, findings are discussed, limitations to the study are considered and implications of this work are highlighted. Finally, in the “ Conclusion ” section, concluding remarks are provided.

Although research exploring the learning impacts of GSRSs is limited, its potential effectiveness as a learning tool has been supported by an extensive body of successful educational video and computer game adaptions. Papastergiou ( 2009 ) found that games improved students’ knowledge of computer memory systems to a greater extent than other computer-mediated learning tools, namely, educational websites. The multi-sensory, experiential nature of games can enhance students’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills (see for example, McFarlane et al. 2002 ). Games can enhance positive classroom dynamics (Rosas et al. 2003 ) and improve students’ interactions with their peers and lecturers. Papastergiou ( 2009 ) also found that students rated games as more appealing and more valuable as an educational tool compared to other performance-tracking educational websites that contained the same content.

In addition to enriching learning, the effectiveness of GSRSs depends on whether students perceive the games as appealing, accessible, useful and of high quality. That said, in spite of the small “wear out effect” of long-term GSRSs use on students’ communication and enjoyment (Wang 2015 ), students who continued to use GSRSs throughout a semester-long course reported their positive impacts on learning and engagement, similar to the excited new users. Students also commented that, even after a whole semester of using a GSRS, they were still motivated to do additional study to prepare for weekly quizzes. More importantly, GSRSs, namely Kahoot!, provides lecturers with meta-cognitive support and encourages students to reflect on their understanding of existing concepts while helping them broaden their knowledge (Plump and LaRosa 2017 ) and facilitate their ability to argue their viewpoints on various topics (Méndez and Slisko 2013 ). Kahoot! is also increasingly used as a formative assessment tool in medical undergraduate programs and was found to support learning retention (Ismail and Mohammad 2017 ).

In fact, Wang and Lieberoth ( 2016 ) dissected Kahoot! to explore which gamification elements positively impact students’ experiences finding that the full Kahoot! experience, rather than any single component, accounted for students’ increased concentration and enjoyment. The student points system was the strongest predictor of engagement as students’ reported an increase in their pulse. However, overall, the presence of audio increased student motivation and classroom dynamics, above and beyond that of the points system. In fact, teachers may use Kahoot! as a reflective tool to validate students’ learning and to monitor overall class progress, as well as individuals’ learning trajectory. For instance, the utilisation of Kahoot!s in Information Science lecture sessions at our institution over the past 2 years suggest that such tools excite students to actively engage in lectures and contribute to the learning environment (Licorish et al. 2017 ).

That said, despite increasing utilisation of GSRSs, it remains unclear the extent to which GSRSs can improve learning beyond what would be expected from conventional teaching methods. In addition, it is still not known whether GSRSs can improve students’ academic performance (Randel et al. 1992 ). Furthermore, there is evidence of a reduction in classroom dynamics with repeated use of Kahoot!, which may negatively impact learning. Wang ( 2015 ) found that regular use of Kahoot! (one session per lecture for a whole semester) resulted in a small “wear-off” effect of positive classroom dynamics in software engineering students. Only 52% of students agreed that Kahoot! increased positive, topic-relevant communication with classmates compared to 67% of first-time users. Although the students were similarly engaged and motivated compared to novice Kahoot! users, the “wear-off” effect of classroom dynamics has previously increased students’ state of boredom, which once manifested, may become persistent across learning environments, and consequently decreases students’ learning ability while increasing problem behaviours (Baker et al. 2010 ; Squire 2005 ).

Another study reported that Socrative, a similarly designed GSRS to Kahoot!, improved classroom dynamics and knowledge awareness, but students disagreed that Socratives enhanced their ability, concept understanding and test practice procedures (Méndez and Slisko 2013 ). Students also implied that Socrative was not suitable for learning difficult material, potentially because it does not allow for open-ended questions, short statements as responses or discussions of relevant theory in sufficient depth due to time constraints. However, the associations between these negative aspects of Socrative and consequences for student learning remained unclear as previous negative reports were only collected through open-ended response questions rather than semi-structured interviews. Nonetheless, concerns have also been raised in the literature about the use of Kahoot! in teaching of complex concepts, especially subjects that can require competition and high cognitive load of the students (see for example, Ismail and Mohammad 2017 ).

In fact, the simple Likert-scale measures (on their own) that are regularly used for GSRS evaluations are not necessarily adequate for understanding the complexities in human behaviour, and particularly those related to students’ engagement, motivation and learning (e.g. Ke 2009 ). The literature suggests that exploring users’ experience with game-based technology may be better suited to qualitative survey-based approaches rather than quantitative measures (Nacke et al. 2010 ). In fact, Wang et al. ( 2009 ) found that users’ experience of perceived playfulness using GSRSs, including attention and focus and intrinsic enjoyability, influenced intention to use, but such issues may not be entirely teased out with quantitative measures. Furthermore, although Wang ( 2015 ) utilised GSRS Likert-scale evaluations with students’ open-ended comments, the data were only analysed quantitatively, and thus, it remains unclear whether semi-structured interviews were conducted to generate answers to specific questions, necessitating further exploration of whether students’ perceptions of GSRSs remain the same or can change over time.

Interestingly, the Likert scales were also not always consistent with students’ open-ended comments (Wang 2015 ). For instance, while GSRSs are said to enhance communication, students explained that impending assessments and a desire to focus on quiz content reduced their willingness to communicate with other students. There is thus need for exploratory studies to unpack if and when GSRSs help, in support of our understanding of classroom dynamics and the way games enhance students’ engagement, motivation and learning. Such insights would direct the use of GSRSs in teaching, and particularly at the tertiary level. We broadly conceptualised classroom dynamics as the interaction between students and lecturers. Student engagement relates to the level of attention, curiosity, focus and interest that students show during the course. Motivation is the persuasion to be engaged and interact in the classroom. Learning is defined as the knowledge and skills that students attain that are directly attributed to their involvement and participation in the course.

Overall, our research aims to contribute to the better understanding of accrued benefits of using GSRSs in learning and to gauge the extent to which the use of Kahoot! can enhance students’ learning experience. More specifically, our objective was to understand how students experienced the use of Kahoot! and to explore the extent to which this interactive technology influences classroom dynamics, engagement, motivation and learning. In our study, we addressed the following four research questions:

RQ1. How does Kahoot! influence classroom dynamics?

Rq2. does the use of kahoot influence students’ engagement, and how, rq3. in what ways does the use of kahoot influence students’ motivation towards learning, rq4. how does the use of kahoot enrich learning experiences.

We employed a qualitative approach to address the four stated questions. We believe that a qualitative research approach is relevant to utilise in this study because the phenomenon being studied is not easily distinguished from the context in which it is observed (Yin 2013 ). Using an explorative case study, we intend to unravel complex perceptions and issues relating to the use of Kahoot! in the context of students’ engagement, motivation and learning. This approach is used to enrich the insights gained from the exploration of the literature and provide deep levels of interpretation for the phenomenon under consideration. We provide details around the design of Kahoot!, our sampling and participants and data processing and analysis in the following three subsections.

The Design of Kahoot!

The game-based student response system (Kahoot!) was used as a part of a third-year course on Information Systems Strategy and Governance in the second semester of 2016 (between July and November). This tool was used in four (4) different ways during seven (7) different lectures by teaching staff (out of 13 lectures altogether), with a duration of about 30 min on average (students could also play Kahoot! outside of the classroom). These include the following: to quiz students on various topics to understand their competence before tailoring lesson plans, for exploring students’ knowledge of topics after they were delivered in lectures, to help students to validate their comprehension and understanding of topics by having them design their own Kahoot! assessments which were then collectively played, and for fun where the focus was on topics unrelated to the course (e.g. sports). Kahoot!s designed by teaching staff were typically 10 to 12 questions long (e.g. covering the IS Cost recovery topic) while those designed by students were eight (8) questions long (e.g. covering IT-supported work). Students designed nine (9) Kahoot!s altogether. Thus, over the course, students played seven staff-created Kahoot!s and nine student-created Kahoot!s. Moreover, the Kahoot! game environment was designed with many interactive features (including suspense music), where students used mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops) to join the games and answer questions, and responses to their choices were visualised (illustrated in Fig.  1 ).

Game show interface projected on screen and on mobile device

Sampling and participants

At the end of the course, students were interviewed using a semi-structured approach, where purposive non-probability sampling was used to recruit students enrolled in the course. The study was announced and its purpose explained during the final lecture, having received human and behavioural ethics approval from the university in which the study was conducted.

Fourteen students (10 male, 4 female) agreed to participate in the study (of 48 students altogether). The sample size is deemed adequate for the chosen (purposive) sampling method as the possible pool of participants is already restricted (Marshall 1996 ). Students agreeing to participate were asked to spare 20 min of their time for the semi-structured interview where they were asked questions relating to the use of “Kahoot!” during the course (interviews took between 15 and 20 min). The questions were focused on understanding students’ experiences using Kahoot! and the tool’s influence on classroom dynamics, their engagement, motivation and learning. Students were also asked to give suggestions for alternative uses of “Kahoot!” and describe their general experience with the tool. Sample questions included “How do you feel about the changes in the Information Systems Strategy and Governance classroom dynamics brought about by Kahoot!?” and “Do you feel that Kahoot! increase/decrease your engagement during the Information Systems Strategy and Governance course, and how did it increase/decrease?”

Data processing and analysis

Students’ responses to the interviews were transcribed by the fourth author, i.e. verbatim. These transcripts were then verified by the first author. The transcripts were identified by author ID; interview time, questions and responses, and students were treated as the units of analysis. Thereafter, our analyses of the content were performed.

We adopted an inductive (bottom-up) approach to content analysis to test whether clear themes relating to classroom dynamics, engagement, motivation and learning appeared in the data (Patton 1990 ). The procedure involved open coding where the interviews were read and re-read for familiarisation and initial codes were identified based on explicit, surface-level semantics in the data, rather than implicit responses and preconceptions (see Braun and Clarke 2006 ). Through axial coding, codes were recombined, and connections were formed between ideas. Then, we used thematic mapping to restructure specific codes into broader themes. Finally, following Braun and Clarke’s ( 2006 ) selective coding procedure, the resulting themes were refined and organised into a coherent, internally consistent account, and a narrative (“story”) was developed to accompany each theme. Themes were extracted from answers provided in response to interview questions, which targeted understandings around classroom dynamics , students’ engagement , motivation and learning . The outcomes were used to answer the four research questions (RQ1–RQ4).

Initially, descriptive statistics were used to summarise participants’ demographic information, including gender distribution (noted above), ages, years of study, hours spent studying and performance in the course. Performance was measured based on coursework (i.e. case critique, case study and class project) and final exam grades, where students tended to perform better in the former assessment. These assessments are scored out of 100% in Table  2 . Of note, however, is that there is disparity in the number of observations for males and females (refer to Table  1 ), so these statistics are not used strictly to examine statistical significance between these two groups. We provide detailed demographic information for the 14 participants in Table  1 and summary statistics in Table  2 , which are used to support the contextualising of our result in the next section.

As noted in the “ Background ” section, we broadly conceptualised classroom dynamics as the interaction between students and lecturers. Student engagement relates to the level of attention, curiosity, focus and interest that students show during the course. Motivation is the persuasion to be engaged and interact in the classroom. Learning is defined as the knowledge and skills that students attain that are directly attributed to their involvement and participation in the course.

Our aim was to examine the extent to which Kahoot! influenced classroom dynamics, students’ engagement, motivation and learning (in answering RQ1–RQ4). Findings from the analysis revealed four major themes related to students’ experience in the use of Kahoot! in the classroom: (1) attention and focus, (2) interaction and engagement, (3) learning and retention of knowledge and (4) fun and enjoyment. The first three themes here cut across those that were planned for the study (revisited above), with learning particularly influencing retention of knowledge, and all other themes evident as defined. Fun and enjoyment was an unexpected theme and explains the feeling of leisure and enjoyable distraction that was experienced by students. Three of the themes extracted from the data (i.e. attention and focus, interaction and engagement, and learning and retention of knowledge) were prevalent in the responses of the 14 participants. Moreover, the theme of fun and enjoyment was identified in the responses of 12 of the 14 participants. We examine our outcomes for each of the four themes in the following subsections.

Attention and focus

All participants (14) seem to agree that the use of Kahoot! triggered positive attention and focus in the classroom. Some suggested that interacting with Kahoot! captured and sustained their attention, as well as enabled them to take a break in the lecture and provided a point of difference.

While the use of Kahoot! itself was an enjoyable activity, students said that Kahoot!s motivated them to pay attention during the lecture. The deployment of Kahoot! also motivated students to closely examine lecture material in order to prepare for the Kahoot! and answer questions correctly.

I guess it keeps you more aware in a way but you’ve got to listen throughout the lecture to know what the answer is in Kahoot! which is also a good thing. So you’re always focused if you want to do well in Kahoot! (Student 7)

Having a break

A major barrier to staying focused in class was the length of the lecture as well as the time of day in which the lecture took place. Our analysis revealed that 9/14 participants highlighted the importance of having a break during lectures in order to balance and sustain a desirable level of attention during lectures. They reported that Kahoot! facilitated breaks in positive ways. Ten of the 14 respondents described staying focused in a 2-h lecture as challenging, with some describing the experience as tedious or boring. Taking a break to engage in a fun activity allowed students to feel refreshed, providing timely relief at the halfway mark of the lecture and re-energising students for the second hour. In addition to facilitating breaks during lecture, the use of Kahoot! also created richer variation in lecture delivery, enabling a moment of fun while continuing to engage with lecture content, only in a more light hearted way.

A point of difference

Participants referred to Kahoot! as a unique lecture experience that is enjoyable and stimulating to learning. Compared to engagement in other lectures, students mentioned that learning with Kahoot! was a rewarding lecture experience that is captivating and desirable.

What’s been good is that it was different… it allowed people to sort of sit back and go well this isn’t how lectures usually run. So it did capture everyone’s attention straight away. (Student 1)

Interaction and engagement

Our analysis suggest that Kahoot! gave students more opportunities to interact and engage with the lecturer, peers and lecture content by providing a fun platform on which to engage. All 14 participants reported that Kahoot! positively impacted engagement in the class, and 13 of the 14 participants said that Kahoot! increased their interaction and involvement in the lectures. Key points that emerged from the data were the importance of discussions, competition and anonymity.

Interaction and discussion

Participants reported that the use of Kahoot! fostered interactivity and engagement during lectures, through answering questions, participating in quizzes, and discussions triggered by Kahoot!. The use of Kahoot! encouraged wider participation in class as opposed to conventional classrooms where discussions are often dominated by a few extraverted students. The wider student participation in the class also fostered deeper engagement in the learning environment.

…Kahoot! gives me a platform that I can express what I think … even though it’s silent … I still give ideas… (Student 5)

Kahoot! fostered wider and active student participation, and yet provided students with the opportunity to retain their most desirable personal choice of participation. Participants reported that when engaging with Kahoot!, they interacted more with peers around them and with the lecturer during and after lectures than they normally would in any other lecture. Participants pointed out that with Kahoot! in the classroom, they could decide on the level of interaction that they felt comfortable with, either participating anonymously or overtly with friends, other classmates, the lecturer or with the whole class.

Yes it made it more interactive. I supposed I don’t talk in any other class … [I talked] with my classmates more than the teacher. I probably wouldn’t have volunteered any information to the teacher. But I definitely did have more discussions in terms of the actual content with people around me than I did in other classes (Student 6)

Competition

Nine participants discussed the competitive element of Kahoot! in relation to their interaction and engagement. Many respondents liked the competitive aspect of Kahoot!s, seeing it as a motivating factor to participate, encouraging them to think critically, increasing their participating energy levels and creating a lively classroom dynamic. Competition was viewed as a strong motivator, with one respondent describing how students like to “perform” and another expressing their motivation to reach the top of the scoreboard and be the best in the class. Having a desire to win encouraged many students to prepare beforehand and engage with the material. It also seems to have been an icebreaker for many students, encouraging them to interact with their peers.

…it was almost a sense of, not just competition, I want to be the best, but also comradery, hey do you think it’s also the square, oh I hit the wrong one what did you go for? (Student 9)

Despite the positive experience associated with the competitive nature of Kahoot!s’ utilisation, two participants felt that the use of Kahoot! had a negative competitive effect on their learning experience. They mentioned that negative aspects of competition came into play when students focused more on the competition and having fun rather than learning. In their desire to compete, some students rushed to answer questions, not taking the time to understand the questions or the answers.

I enjoyed it, I think towards the end we probably all got a bit distracted with names and being competitive, I think sometimes you lose sight of trying to learn new things because you are just trying to win and have fun with friends instead of learning (Student 8)

While viewed as a negative aspect of participation in technology-mediated learning environments, allowing anonymity can foster deep and enriched participation. Providing anonymous participation in a learning environment can encourage wider participation as it inculcates a sense of safety and privacy (White and Dorman 2001 ). The way Kahoot! was used in the course allowed students to enter a name of choice into the system each time they participated. Students could decide if they wished to remain anonymous or identify themselves. Anonymity allowed students’ to feel safer when responding to questions. It also allowed students to focus on comparing the content of Kahoot! and differences of opinion, rather than comparing students’ aptitudes. This encouraged participation, as students were able to take part without feeling that they were being judged for answering correctly or incorrectly. Several respondents described funny names within the Kahoot! adding positively to the element of fun and social learning in game-based environments (Squire 2011 ). However, this also had the potential to shift the focus away from learning as students became distracted and no longer took the Kahoot! seriously.

…so because it’s anonymous it never creates conflict … so if the system is anonymous that’s good for students. (Student 5)

Learning and knowledge retention

Nine out of the 14 participants stated that Kahoot! was a useful learning tool, and all 14 described Kahoot! as having a positive influence on their learning experience. Throughout the interviews, participants made positive references to how Kahoot! supported their learning. They stated that engaging with Kahoot! during lectures helped them not only to remember previously covered material but to understand new perspectives. They also reported that Kahoot! increased their knowledge. Knowing that there would be a Kahoot! in class also motivated several students to prepare and review material in order to do well in the Kahoot!. In particular, students enjoyed Kahoot!s that were relevant to the course, explored complex concepts and offered insight into applications of theory. Key benefits that participants discussed were how Kahoot!s aided revision, generated discussion and helped them to retain knowledge.

When you get a question it does help you, you’ve got to think about the answer, you’ve got to look at lectures to prepare for it… so that’s part of revision as well (Student 3)

Participants felt strongly that Kahoot! could be used for revision, with 12 participants seeing Kahoot! as a useful revision tool. In fact, three participants had used Kahoot! as a revision tool for exam preparation. Participants commonly felt the best use of the tool was to review lecture content and key topics, with Kahoot!-related course content favoured over those unrelated to the course. By repeating the content in a novel way through Kahoot!s, students felt they were more likely to remember the concepts. In particular, participants mentioned Kahoot!s being useful for allowing a deeper understanding of theoretical concepts. Kahoot! also offered a brief and concise understanding of the basic concepts in the course, which was then reinforced and enriched by a class discussion that encouraged more in-depth thinking.

It helped with the revising what we’d already been taught more so than actually learning the stuff because you were already asking questions about things you’d already taught us [and] I guess that does help in the long run of actually understanding (Student 7)

Eleven (11) participants’ responses indicated that the discussion generated by Kahoot! was often where the most valuable learning took place. Specific benefits to post-Kahoot! discussions provided perspective, highlighted diverse opinions and allowed students a chance to evaluate their knowledge in comparison to other classmates. Kahoot! and the following discussion also gave students feedback to immediately correct their own mistakes, knowing if they got an answer right or wrong, and more importantly, why. Exploring the answers and understanding why they were right or wrong generated a deeper understanding that strongly aided participants’ engagement and retention of knowledge.

The Kahoot! itself almost seems like a fun tool to get people back engaged and then the conversation afterwards is where the learning actually occurs. You’re not actually learning from it directly but more indirectly from the discussion afterwards (Student 4)

Increasing and retaining knowledge

Nine participants mentioned that Kahoot! helped them remember information during and after class. A few students also felt that Kahoot! added to their knowledge, as when new information was introduced they were more likely to remember it through a Kahoot!. Regarding knowledge retention, respondents appreciated that it was a quick and simple way to refresh their memory and continue to engage with the material. Respondents indicated that within the 2-h lecture, a lot of material was presented to them, making it hard to retain key concepts and facts. Kahoot!s supported students to re-grasp and retain key points from within the lecture, providing a reminder of what was covered. Participants also noted that they were more likely to remember Kahoot!s that they got wrong, as they had to consider why they got the question wrong and seek to understand the correct answer.

It’s often good to go back because then ones you got wrong, you remember them because you are like oh I got that one wrong and it’s easier to remember them (Student 12)

Fun and enjoyment

As a game-based student response system, fun and entertainment lie at the core of Kahoot!. The data showed that respondents enjoyed the Kahoot!. Twelve participants specifically pointed out that Kahoot! was fun. The element of enjoyment and fun underlies the positive aspects of all three aforementioned themes. However, fun and enjoyment were also alluded to as being a contributor to several negative impacts of Kahoot!.

It was definitely a positive interest … it wasn’t a standard boring lecture where you could sit there and read the notes later on….. (Student 1)

The firm preference for using Kahoot! among participants was attributed to the game features. Participants said they enjoyed the game, they liked the use of it in class and they enjoyed the course because of the Kahoot!. Further, the aspect of fun and enjoyment seems to have helped a number of students overcome barriers to interaction that they face in a typical lecture environment. Kahoot!s as an energetic, fun, class-wide activity (that did not require students to identify themselves or speak in front of the class) served as an icebreaker for many respondents.

It was just a fun way of interacting and learning the stuff and seeing if you knew your stuff with the quizzes and stuff for me that was useful (Student 7)

That said, two (2) participants reported a mixed response, and one (1) of the two participants felt the aspect of fun had a negative impact. Throughout the data, it is evident that striking a balance between fun and learning is vital to effectively using Kahoot! as a valuable tool in the classroom. It seems as though participants reported negative impacts when the focus shifted too much in either direction. Respondents specifically described whacky or funny names in the Kahoot!s as sometimes distracting. They also felt that Kahoot!s involving guessing were purely for the sake of having fun and did not contribute to their learning. Only one participant specifically mentioned that they enjoyed fun ‘off-topic’ Kahoot!s, with most participants feeling such Kahoot!s were irrelevant and an inefficient use of class time.

It didn’t feel directed enough … I was kind of like why are we doing this, it just seemed like a random fun activity… I mean it’s fun but there’s not point to it in the grand scheme of things. (Student 6)

Learning and instructional science research has established that gaining students’ attention and keeping them engaged in class is central to stimulating their learning, and low levels of attention span is linked to poor performance (Gagné 1985 ; Gagné and Driscoll 1988 ). Maintaining students’ attention and engagement can be difficult in Information Science lectures, which may not be conducive to establishing positive student-lecturer interactions and student participation. In addition, when students do not participate openly, this could be problematic given that motivation and engagement strongly influence learning and may be critical to academic success (Martin 2008 ; Pintrich and Schrauben 1992 ). Therefore, higher education institutions (including institutions in New Zealand) have started deploying learning technologies, such as GSRSs, to present lecture content in a novel manner, to encourage students to participate in class anonymously and to provide them with more meaningful revision methods (Licorish et al. 2017 ). Teachers and course coordinators integrate GSRSs into lectures with a view to enhance student motivation, engagement and in turn deeper learning. Beyond such interventions, with maturity in learning technologies, mobile and ubiquitous devices are becoming widespread in contemporary classroom settings and are being integrated into many aspects of classroom teaching to encourage students’ engagement, motivation and learning (e.g. Brandford-Networks 2013 ).

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing use of game-based student response systems (GSRSs) to support attention, motivation and engagement. However, there remained a conflict in previous research as to whether GSRSs, namely Kahoot!, improved student learning and retention. Thus, there was a need for a qualitative exploration of students’ learning experiences using Kahoot!, particularly in the domain of Information Science at the university level. The current study explored how the integration of GSRSs and Kahoot! contributed to students’ motivation, engagement and learning in the domain of Information Science, shedding light on how and when Kahoot! has a positive impact on students’ learning experiences. We revisit our outcomes to answer our four research questions in this section and outline potential implications for research and practice. We first answer the research questions and discuss the outcomes in relation to previous works in the “ Discussion ” section. Next, we consider the limitations of the work in the “ Limitations ” section. Finally, we evaluate the implications of the analysis in the “ Implications and future work ” section, and also outline avenues for future research.

We observed that Kahoot! gave students more opportunities to engage with the lecturer, peers and lecture content. It also helped in creating a learning experience that was described as “fun”, which contributed to useful classroom engagement dynamics. This was a particularly different learning experience to the traditional “chalk and talk” method that students have been exposed to in other courses (e.g. Graham 2015 ; Roehl et al. 2013 ). The findings substantiate previous research in supporting the use of Kahoot! in fostering our understanding of classroom dynamics, enhanced lecturer-student engagement, and more constructive discussions with peers (Plump and LaRosa 2017 ; Wang 2015 ). When students are engaged, they exhibit curiosity in the learning content and maintain focus during class sessions. Consistent with Wang ( 2015 ), findings from our study suggested that maintaining anonymity is critical for facilitating engagement among students who might not be actively participating in classroom discussions. Findings also suggested that the employment of Kahoot! led to excessive competition among students and to some extent, invoked negative feelings. That said, notwithstanding such feelings, we observed that the desire to perform resulted in increased learning (or knowledge acquisition). While Kahoot! is known as a great tool for doing revision before formal assessments, it is interesting to know that this tool may also promote class discussion after the game, which may ultimately enhance students’ ability to remember concepts at a later stage. Thus, beyond increased engagement and a shift in classroom dynamics, the drive to perform, and ultimately increase learning are positive effects of Kahoot! use during lectures.

Students felt that Kahoot! captured their focus (or attention) and interest during the course but was also timely for allowing breaks. This was particularly necessary for reflection on lectures and class discussion, especially in lectures that were longer than 1 h. In the same vein, the need to be attentive to perform well in Kahoot! helped students to maintain interest in the lessons during lectures. Their willingness to perform was also influenced by the level of anonymity afforded by Kahoot!, which allowed students to remain focussed on comparing the content of Kahoot!s and differences of opinion, rather than comparing other students’ aptitudes. Consistent with Experiential Gaming Model (Kiili 2005 ), these findings further emphasise the importance of GSRSs, like games, for generation and testing of ideas during problem-solving, monitoring one’s knowledge through feedback and discussion, and encoding and storing this knowledge for future use (e.g. Ke 2009 ; Papastergiou 2009 ). These findings also somewhat contradict the idea that students only learn through trial and error when using GSRSs (Kiili 2005 ). In fact, our findings show that in view of exploring answers to questions and understanding why they were right or wrong, students generated a deeper understanding that strongly aided their engagement and ability to remember. This outcome is interesting, in that there is indication that in-depth learning results from the discussion after playing Kahoot!; even after the game is over. To this end, the design of questions for the Kahoot! game and subsequent discussions are likely to be integral to in-depth learning. Thus, the instructor’s design of questions and his/her skills in leading discussions are important factors in getting the most values out of an online tool like Kahoot!. While the game is likely to provide an atmosphere that would lead to potentially more relaxed and attentive students, similar learning may also result in the absence of Kahoot! if the instructor thrust is towards this cause. Students’ reports of the importance of the post-Kahoot! discussion is consistent with findings from previous “blended learning” interventions (i.e. e-learning and teacher instructions) which indicate that autonomous, student-driven online learning is more effective when staff members interact with students regularly using the platform and provide prompt, detailed and summative feedback (Poon 2013 ; Yen and Lee 2011 ).

Our outcomes show that Kahoot! motivated students to be engaged, and encourage interaction in the classroom (both student-student and student-lecturer). Students were motivated to be attentive on the backdrop that they wanted to perform well in Kahoot!s. This in turn motivated students to engage with the lecturer, peers and lecture content. Kahoot! also motivated competition in the classroom, where students were driven to see their names at the top of the leader board, and thus, were more attentive during lectures and related discussions. These effects of enhanced attention and “healthy” competition are consistent with Wang’s ( 2015 ) findings.

However, we observed that students drive to perform well in Kahoot! and the use of inappropriate names could invoke negative feelings towards the tool and increase distraction. Furthermore, Kahoot!s involving guessing do not maintain students’ motivation towards learning, as students perceive these to target fun. However, third year university students are eager to focus on subject-relevant content, and so, find little value in content delivered that is off topic. If instructors want to incorporate Kahoot! in their lectures, they might want to minimise these negative effects. For instance, teachers could reduce the length of Kahoot! sessions but devote more time to the post-Kahoot! discussion of the answers and the problem-solving strategies taken to achieve the correct answers. Teachers should also achieve a balance between testing students on new versus recently acquired content to maintain their attention, and maximise Kahoot!’s effectiveness as a learning tool.

Student conceded that Kahoot!s’ use in the course had a positive impact on the knowledge and skills they attained. Students noted that the drive to increase their attention and interaction strongly supported their learning in the course. This supports previously documented positive effects of GSRS use on learning (Ismail and Mohammad 2017 ; Méndez and Slisko 2013 ; Plump and LaRosa 2017 ) and is consistent with Novak’s ( 1998 ) model of meaningful learning. Lecturers are responsible for establishing an environment in which deep learning (relating course information to everyday behaviours and their own experiences) occurs through Kahoot! use, thus providing students with the tools to adopt these learning strategies in their assessment and study. Indeed, when students did not perform well in Kahoot!s, those specific Kahoot!s were used to drive revision efforts, in view of overcoming learning deficiencies. In addition, Kahoot! offered students the opportunity to focus on specific relevant content, when a large amount of materials were delivered in lectures, which, again, is consistent with Wang’s ( 2015 ) findings. However, as student assessment approaches, Kahoot! may play more of a supporting role in the revision process as students may focus more on studying lecture content than interacting with other students and the lecturer. Kahoot! not only increases learning and the desire to remember lecture content during revision, but increases knowledge retention over the course of the lecture, i.e. students report that learning took place between Kahoot! and the discussion that followed. Having the teacher explain the theory and reasoning behind the correct answers meant that the information was more strongly encoded in long-term memory. Thus, students may not require additional revision to remember and correctly report relevant content during assessments.

Limitations

While we have provided a number of insights in this work, we acknowledge that there are a number of shortcomings that may potentially affect the validity and generalizability of our study outcomes. Firstly, our sample is relatively small, and thus, our outcomes may not generalise to all lecture environments. That said, given the theoretical saturation observed for the themes revealed in this study, we believe that our outcomes may generalise to third year Information Science university students. Second, the students’ perceptions around the use of Kahoot! may be influenced by their background, and thus, this is to be considered when interpreting our findings. Third, Kahoot! was used in four (4) different ways during seven (7) different lectures by staff, with a duration of about 30 min on average. Students also designed and played a further nine Kahoot!s. Such use of Kahoot! may not represent all possible scenarios, and thus, students’ perception may vary given other experiences with the tool. That said, we have carefully considered how Kahoot! was used with a view of stimulating classroom dynamics, students’ engagement and motivation, and ultimately, their learning, and so we believe our approach to the use of this tool was exhaustive. Finally, since the study was qualitative in nature, it is limited in its generalizability to other settings, beyond the lessons learned. Future work will focus on deploying Kahoot! with a large number of students and different subjects and assess students’ experience while learning in this environment.

Implications and future work

On balance, Kahoot!s with the highest impact on classroom dynamics, student engagement, motivation and learning seems to be those that focussed on relevant course topics, and where there is little use of excessively distracting names and students’ behaviours. In fact, consistent with Papastergiou’s ( 2009 ) findings, students noted that Kahoot! improved classroom dynamics, engagement, motivation and learning beyond what would be expected from traditional teaching methods (e.g. normal PowerPoint slides and chalk and talk). However, we were not able to quantitatively examine such differences with the data collected; we hope to do so in future work. The themes identified support the previous studies that have found a positive effect of GSRSs on, for instance, classroom dynamics, motivation, social interaction, attention, (Méndez and Slisko 2013 ), willingness to prepare for class and learning (Plump and LaRosa 2017 ; Wang 2015 ; Wang and Lieberoth 2016 ).

This confirmation suggests that Kahoot!, and the use of games and gamification in general, have a positive influence on classroom dynamics, students’ engagement and motivation, and ultimately, their learning. While our evidence here is positive for informing pedagogy, and particularly in terms of identifying the suitable contexts for which the use of games and gamification are beneficial, challenges are still likely to remain in terms of the time needed to learn and setup these technologies, creating appropriate content, and providing students with useful and timely feedback. Indeed, time constraints for Kahoot! sessions in lectures were reflected in some of the negative feedback from students, who felt that the recreational use of Kahoot! restricted content coverage and wasted valuable lecture time. Therefore, it is important for teachers to carefully structure lectures so that Kahoot! time is appropriately allocated. Educators are thus encouraged to balance these challenges in introducing game-play sustainably, particularly in light of the potential benefits that could be derived through the use of games during learning sessions.

In terms of our methodological contributions in this work, this study attempted to show rigour by employing a systematic procedure for data coding and thematic extraction that researchers can follow in the future (Cope 2014 ). The findings of this study also reflect high transferability and auditability (Daniel 2018 ), as the lessons learned from this work can be useful in similar GSRSs contexts (e.g. Socrative, Quizlet and Buzz!) and can be successfully implemented into university lectures in the future. From an applied perspective, and particularly towards improving lecture practice, the results of the present study also provide guidelines as to when and for how long Kahoot! can be a useful learning tool.

Our future research will involve a large-scale deployment of Kahoot! to examine the efficacy of this tool in enhancing student learning outcomes, using quasi-experimental design as well as exploring the experiences of teachers in using Kahoot! in enhancing their teaching effectiveness. We also plan to administer a web-based survey to gather quantitative evidence to triangulate our outcomes, and particularly those around the specific aspects of GSRSs that contribute to the enrichment of learning over the use of the “chalkboard” or “PowerPoint slides”. Furthermore, there is scope to correlate our outcomes with those provided by learning analytics tools.

There is growing interest in understanding how students’ motivation and engagement influence their learning. On the promise that technology may aid this process, institutions of higher education are deploying learning technologies with a view of encouraging student motivation and engagement, spanning interventions related to lecture content and assessments, including revision for exams. Educational games and gamification in particular are held to support the development of students’ cognitive, motivational, emotional and social outlook. GSRSs stand at the heart of such interventions and are said to provide students with real-time feedback and require no prior teacher training to implement. In contrast, SRSs are said to pose challenges related to the time needed to learn and setup these technologies, creating appropriate content, and providing students with useful and timely feedback. One such GSRS, Kahoot!, fosters motivation and engagement through gamification, where teachers are able to provide real-time feedback to students, and to some extent adapt teaching activities based on students’ responses to quizzes. Students are also afforded anonymity when playing Kahoot!, which reduces the risk of their privacy being compromised. Furthermore, because Kahoot! incorporates social media, it enables students to create, share and exchange content with others in the class, and hence fosters a sense of community. Notwithstanding the positive reports about Kahoot!, these outcomes were largely derived through quantitative means and rarely focus on university students. To this end, there is need for deeper insights around the effectiveness of this tool, and particularly for older students. We addressed this gap and conducted interviews with university students to understand Kahoot! further, including how this technology informs learning, and the conditions under which it provides the most value to teachers and students.

We observed that Kahoot! gave students more opportunities to engage with the lecturer, peers and lecture content. It also helped in creating a learning experience that was described as “fun”, which contributed to useful classroom engagement dynamics. Students felt that Kahoot! captured their focus and interest during the course, but was also timely for allowing breaks. This was particularly necessary for reflection on lectures and class discussion, especially in lectures that were longer than 1 h. Students’ willingness to perform was also influenced by the level of anonymity afforded by Kahoot!, which allowed students to remain focussed on comparing the content of Kahoot!s and differences of opinion, rather than comparing other students’ aptitudes. Our outcomes show that Kahoot! motivated students to be engaged and encourage interaction in the classroom. Student conceded that Kahoot!s’ use in the course had a positive impact on the knowledge and skills they attained. Students noted that the drive to increase their attention and focus and interaction and engagement strongly supported their learning in the course. Our findings suggest that the use of educational games in the classroom is likely to minimise distractions, thereby improving the quality of teaching and learning beyond what is provided in conventional classrooms. However, there is need for larger scale follow-up work to validate these effects.

Medium-size lectures in New Zealand comprise over 40 students, with large lectures comprising more than 100.

Abbreviations

Committee for Teaching and Learning

Game-based student response system

Student response system

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the students for their participation in the interviews. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Sander Zwanenburg and Dr. Grant Dick who designed and planned lessons around Kahoot! during the Information Systems Strategy and Governance course.

This work is funded by a University of Otago Teaching Development Grant—accessed through the Committee for Teaching and Learning (CALT).

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Sherlock A. Licorish & Jade Li George

Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

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The work performed in this manuscript is divided as follows. The study was initially designed by SAL, who also performed all interviews and managed all transcripts and demographic data. Transcripts were analysed by SAL and JLG, and reliability checks, data analysis and the recording of the results were also performed by these two authors. The method was documented by SAL, with support from the HEO. HEO, BD and SAL performed the literature review, evaluated the study outcomes and implications and limitations. Editorial reviews and formatting of the paper were done by the SAL, HEO and BD. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sherlock A. Licorish .

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Sherlock A. Licorish is a lecturer in the Department of Information Science at University of Otago, in New Zealand. He was awarded his PhD by AUT, and his research centres on the use of games in Information Science education. Sherlock’s research involves the use of data mining, data visualisation, statistical analysis and other quantitative methods (e.g. social network analysis, linguistic and sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP) and probabilistic modelling techniques). He has also used qualitative methods in his research, including qualitative forms of content analysis and dilemma analysis.

Helen Elizabeth Owen is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Otago and an associate editor of Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal . She obtained her PhD in Psychology in 2016 from the University of Otago. Her research encompasses areas of social cognition and forensic psychology, and more specifically focuses on social categorisation, language use and deception detection. She has also investigated the role of persuasive language in consumer decision-making. More recently, she has been researching in the field of human factors, exploring user acceptance of technology and the users’ experiences of expectation violation. She is involved in interdisciplinary projects with Information Science and the Higher Education Development Centre to explore the role of game-based student response systems in student learning and engagement at the University of Otago.

Ben Kei Daniel is an associate professor in Higher Education and the convener for Educational Technology for the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research broadly focuses on the examination of the value of Big Data and Learning Analytics in enhancing teaching, learning and research. He is also investigating Data Science approaches for educational research, as well as pedagogical theories and praxis for research methodologies in Business and Academia.

Jade Li George is an international consultant in London, UK. She advises and prepares international teachers and support staff for roles in the UK. Jade also previously provided student support and interventions for literacy, numeracy and phonics. Her research work focuses on qualitative data analysis, and exploring the use of game-based student response systems on classroom dynamics and students’ learning.

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Licorish, S.A., Owen, H.E., Daniel, B. et al. Students’ perception of Kahoot!’s influence on teaching and learning. RPTEL 13 , 9 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-018-0078-8

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-018-0078-8

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Kahoot! is committed to supporting Ukrainian educators and learners affected by the current crisis. To protect the integrity of our platform and our users, we will suspend offering Kahoot!’s services in Russia, with the exception of self-study.

Ukrainian educators and learners need our support

We are deeply troubled and concerned by the violence and loss of life resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We stand with the people of Ukraine and we hope for the swiftest and most peaceful possible end to the current crisis. 

Kahoot! has received a number of requests from schools and educators in Ukraine requesting the help of our services to continue teaching despite the disruption of the war. We have supported each of these and we are now offering Kahoot! EDU solutions for free for both K-12 and higher education institutions for one year to Ukrainian schools in need. In addition, we are fast-tracking translation and localization of the Kahoot! platform into Ukrainian. 

Suspending commercial services and sales in Russia

Our commercial footprint in the Russian market is very limited. We do not have offices or representation in the country, nor do we have any physical operations or data services there. The overwhelming majority of our users in Russia are teachers and students using our free service.

Kahoot! is abiding by the international sanctions regime, and does not allow sales to sanctioned individuals or entities in Russia. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kahoot! initiated a process to suspend offering of all commercial services in Russia. This includes but is not limited to online sales, assisted sales, app store sales and prohibiting sales to Russian corporations and organizations.

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As part of our mission to make learning awesome, and as education remains a fundamental human right, we offer teachers, students and personal users free access to our platform. We do this in more than 200 countries and regions in a spirit similar to public commons services, such as Wikipedia. 

Similarly, inclusivity is one of Kahoot!’s overarching values. As such, our aim is to, whenever and wherever possible, offer children, schools and others the opportunity to use digital tools for impactful education and learning, irrespective of their background or location. This has been our guiding principle also for offering our service in Russia.

Among our first responses to the crisis was to swiftly expand our global moderation team’s monitoring on all Russia-related content to safeguard the integrity of the platform. 

However, as the situation continues to escalate, it is vital that we are able to ensure that our platform is used according to our own guidelines and standards. Therefore, in addition to suspending sales, we will be taking all possible and necessary steps to suspend access to Kahoot! services in Russia, with the eventual exception of self-study mode which will feature only content verified by Kahoot!.

This will enable students, school children and other individual users to continue their learning journeys both safely and responsibly. We will continue to assess ways in which our services can be offered safely and responsibly to support all learners and educators, also those based in Russia. 

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At Kahoot!, we are not just a team in name, we are a team in practice. As such, we are committed to the well-being of our employees, especially those with ties to Ukraine, or those that in other ways are particularly affected by the war. We are providing these colleagues with any support we can. 

Acknowledging the current situation, the Kahoot! Group made an emergency aid donation to Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council. This is a contribution to support life-saving assistance and protection for innocent Ukrainian children, families and refugees. 

As the situation in Ukraine continues to develop our teams across the company are actively monitoring the crisis so that we can respond in the most responsible and supportive way possible. 

Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine, their loved ones, and anyone affected by this crisis. 

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Shannon Maree Teaching

Social-Emotional Learning Activities for Online Teaching

Here are 5 simple social-emotional learning activities for online teaching that your students will love! In this overwhelming, uncertain time our students need social-emotional support more than ever. These ideas are low-prep for us as teachers but powerful activities for our kids.

1. Games for Social-Emotional Learning

In upper elementary, this isn’t as much of an intuitive response as it is in the younger grades….but it’s just as important! Games help with communication, patience, problem-solving, self-management, and build student relationships. 

Here are some no-prep quick and easy games you can play via distance learning. They are great for morning meetings, warm-ups, or brain breaks. 

• Scavenger hunt: Have a shortlist of items for students to find around the house. Read items one at a time. The student who can return with the item the fastest wins that round. Ideas: something fuzzy or furry, something with a battery, 2 coins, sunglasses, a book, something you wear on your feet, something that’s square, two items that are opposite,  etc. 
• 4 Corners: Students raise hands to show they’re ready. The teacher selects a student to be “it.” That student closes their eyes and counts to 5. Students then hold up a number on their fingers (1-4). The student who is “it” picks a number 1-4, anyone holding up that number is out and puts their hand down. 
• Charades/Pictionary : Random fun words or content/vocab based
• Guess Who (kids submit fun facts about themselves, then people guess who it is) 
• Comedy Hour: Everyone who wants can bring a joke to share
• Quizzlet live or Kahoot: Academic or SEL basd options: here’s an example of an emotions Kahoot game you could play: https://create.kahoot.it/details/feelings-and-emotions-scenarios/1bfa1f37-ee62-492a-868f-e3c402bc7cab )
• Directed Drawings: There are tons of options here is one my students have enjoyed (I show them through share screen) then they hold up their finished drawings at the end. https://www.youtube.com/user/ArtforKidsHub  
• Rock, Paper, Scissors Class Vs Teacher: Everyone plays, anyone who beats the teacher stays in for the round, anyone who the teacher beats puts their hands down, continue until there is a winner!
• Show and Tell: Let students know ahead of time and they can bring something to share with the class
• Student Teacher: Students take turns sharing a quick “how-to” with the class: how to make bubbles, make play-doh, an easy recipe, a paper airplane, etc.
• Invite a guest: Guest yoga instructor, magician, another teacher they may have had in the past or an admin to do the read-aloud
• Use emojis in the chat to guess a vocabulary word, book/movie title, character, phrase or saying, etc. Or pose a situation and ask students to share how they’d feel or respond in that situation by using emojis.

2. Social-Emotional Read Alouds

Read alouds are a great way to teach social-emotional skills and bring normalcy to our students’ lives. Read alouds teach social-emotional skills by building empathy, providing discussions on perspective, problem-solving, and decision making. They also model and encourage appreciating diversity. 

You can check out some of my favorite chapter book SEL read alouds here: https://shannonmareeteaching.com/read-alouds-for-the-social-emotional-learning-classroom/  

and some great social-emotional picture book read alouds here: https://shannonmareeteaching.com/classroom-community-for-upper-elementary/  

Social-emotional learning activities for online teaching can be quick, simple, and impactful.

3. Daily/Frequent Student Check-Ins

Our students, like the rest of us, are facing uncertain times. They are coping with major changes, potentially sick family members or friends, and the emotional rollercoaster and stress that come with a world crisis. Checking in our students can look a variety of ways. Check-ins are great for assessing the overall well-being of your students. Here are some of my favorites: 

• Non-verbal: Students can show you with an action how they’re feeling, you can also offer  numbers (1-5 assigning each a different meaning) and ask students to show you with their hands
• Ask students to describe if they were the weather, what they’d be today
• Google Forms: Always available for students to use, quick and easy, students don’t need an account, information is neatly organized for the teacher
• Ask students to drop an emoji in the comments that represents how they’re feeling
• Color check-in: Assign different meanings to different colors and have students hold up something that color

You can grab a free of the Google Forms Student Check-In I’m using by clicking here.

4. Mindful Breathing

Coping strategies, like mindful breathing, are a great way to support students. Students can use mindful breathing anywhere anytime. Social-emotional learning activities for online teaching like mindful breathing can be used by students outside of class or as a whole group to start a lesson, take a brain break, or end class.

• Belly Breathing: Focus on holding your chest still while making your stomach rise and fall for 3 minutes. Lay on your back and put your hands on your stomach. Feel your stomach lift and lower while taking deep breaths.
• Deep Square Breathing: Start by drawing one side of the square and breathe in for 4 seconds. Draw the second line of the square and hold your breath for 4 seconds. As you draw the third line breathe out for 4 seconds. Complete the square by drawing the fourth line and holding your breath for 4 seconds. Repeat as many times as you want.
• Bubble Breathing: Take a deep breath in. Exhale slowly trying to blow the biggest bubble you can without exhaling too quickly and popping it.
• Shoulder Roll Breathing: Slowly begin to lift and roll your shoulders backward. As you roll them breathe in and out. When you’re ready, switch directions of the shoulder roll. Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly.
• Hand Tracing Breathing: Students put one hand out in front of themselves and use a finger on the other hand to trace. As they trace up the finger they take a deep breath in through their nose, and as they trace down the finger they slowly let the air out of their mouth. 

Want your students to have other coping strategies? Grab the free emotional check-in and paired coping strategies Google Slides resource here.

5. Practice Gratitude

Focusing on the positive and showing gratitude has scientifically proven to improve physical and emotional health. Here are some quick gratitude prompts you can do with your students. 

• What are 3 things you’re thankful for today?
• What are 5 positive things about yourself?
• Who are 3 people you’re thankful for today?
• Who are 3 people you can reach out to with encouragement or a message of gratitude today?
• What’s a place that your grateful for?
• What’s something you’re grateful to have today that you didn’t have a few years ago?
• What artist, musician, author, performer, or athlete are you grateful for?
• What book are you grateful for?
• What’s something outside that brings you joy?

Here are some great teacher posts to check out regarding distance learning: -Distance Learning: What is Happening? -Online Learning Resources and Activities -Boost Classroom Community During Digital Learning -How to Map Out Your E-Learning Lesson Plans -Mindfulness in the Classroom

Social-Emotional Learning Activities

What are your favorite ways to incorporate social-emotional learning into your virtual classroom? Drop a comment below, I’d love to hear.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Gamification in the classroom: kahoot as a tool for university teaching innovation.

• 1 Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain
• 2 Department of Education and Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Atlántico Medio, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
• 3 Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, University of San Buenaventura-Cali, Cali, Colombia
• 4 Department of Psychology, Higher Education Center for Teaching and Educational Research, Madrid, Spain

Objectives: The purpose of this study has been to evaluate the use of gamification in the classroom, in terms of its effects on attention, concentration, creativity, and generic capabilities, for university students enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree program in Physiotherapy.

Methods: An experimental design was implemented, using three groups differentiated by their time of exposure to the game (0 min, 30 min, or 60 min per week). The sample consisted of 73 s-year students from a Bachelor’s degree program in Physiotherapy. The theoretical content for each class was taught during a period of 4 months, reinforced by use of the Kahoot! Online platform. Selective attention and concentration were evaluated using the d2 Test of Attention; creative intelligence using the Creative Intelligence Test (CREA); and generic capabilities using the capabilities subscale of the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ).

Results: The study’s participants had a mean age of 19.51 ± 0.9 years, and it has demonstrated that use of Kahoot! For longer periods of time, i.e., more than 60 min per day, can improve essential skills in university students, such as attention, creativity, critical thinking, self-managed learning, adaptability, problem solving, and computer literacy. This study’s results show that integrating Kahoot! Into the educational environment, especially with longer sessions that allow for deeper immersion in the game, produces benefits by stimulating various cognitive aspects and enhancing complex skills.

Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that use of Kahoot! Improves key skills such as attention, creativity, and critical thinking, especially when longer sessions are used. It is also suggested that its use should be balanced with other educational activities, in order to achieve comprehensive development for the students.

1 Introduction

Teaching in the 21st century requires the use of active approaches that give students a prominent role during the learning process, and their educational experiences need to be useful and broadly applicable. This means that the students should be given opportunities for interaction, cooperation, competition, etc. ( Martínez, 2017 ), because these aspects are typically associated with improved motivation during the teaching-learning process, as demonstrated by recent studies ( Rodríguez et al., 2019 ; Darling-Hammond et al., 2020 ). New educational demands require new teaching strategies that can improve the dynamics of the learning process, and one of these new strategies is known as gamification ( Li et al., 2023 ), whose benefits in the educational environment have been widely documented ( Dahalan et al., 2023 ).

Gamification is defined as an educational strategy that adapts elements of game playing, so that they can be applied in the learning environment, with the aim of improving the students’ academic performance ( Chen and Liang, 2022 ). Incorporating game-based elements can increase attention and engagement ( Licorish et al., 2018 ), enhance motivation for working in groups, and in general, produce a more effective commitment to learning ( Müller et al., 2015 ). It is an approach that can potentially enhance the learning process ( Johns, 2015 ; Kalu and Bwalya, 2017 ), with an impact on the students’ grades and creation of a more satisfying educational experience ( Ismail and Mohammad, 2017 ).

Integrating gamification into the educational environment requires strategic use of the mechanics offered by the games themselves, such as rewards, competition, levels, and goals, but in contexts unrelated to those games ( Arnold, 2014 ). This approach also requires development of creative activities that can challenge the students to complete tasks in an innovative and original way ( Lee and Hammer, 2011 ; Calvo and López-Rodríguez, 2021 ). In turn, this contributes to development of social skills, as the students are confronted by the challenges and objectives presented by the educational games ( Villalustre and Del Moral, 2015 ). According to Kapp (2012) and Zichermann and Cunningham (2011) , the aim of gamification is to make use of game-like strategies and mechanics to strengthen individual engagement and increase learning and motivation, among other objectives. It has been demonstrated that gamification can provide multiple advantages, with some of the highlights being the psychological benefits of improved concentration and attention ( McGonigal, 2011 ), promotion of deductive and spatial thinking ( Miller, 2013 ), and stimulation of imagination and creativity ( De Soto, 2018 ). We agree with the conclusion reached by De Soto ( Uyulgan and Akkuzu, 2004 ), that when an activity is enjoyable, the brain is able to assimilate information better. Gamification is therefore an approach that can help optimize learning, thereby improving the acquisition of knowledge ( Ortiz et al., 2018 ).

There are currently a variety of online applications available on the market, which allow creation of interactive tests and questionnaires for use in the classroom, with the students able to participate by using their own mobile devices ( Lozada and Gómez, 2017 ). These are tools that make it possible to develop games, activities, and questionnaires, and this can encourage more active student participation. The introduction of innovative teaching techniques, such as competition tests, motivates the students to play a more dynamic and interactive role ( Orbegoso, 2016 ). The games are appealing to them, and by reviewing questionnaires or encouraging discussions during the game, these activities can become exciting and attractive experiences for the students ( Oliva, 2017 ). In addition, the use of devices such as iClickers and smartphones, along with free online tools such as Socrative, Kahoot! And Quizizz, are making evaluation of students easier by providing real-time results. They also make it possible for instructors to obtain specific feedback, regarding the level of student comprehension of the contents they are teaching in the classroom ( Pintor-Díaz, 2017 ).

After performing some in-depth background research and exploring various options, we decided to implement a methodology based on gamification by using the Kahoot! Platform. Our belief was that this would represent an opportunity to stimulate motivation, improve group dynamics, increase attention and critical thinking, and enhance learning among the students ( McLaughlin and Yan, 2017 ). Kahoot! Is a type of software that allows the instructor to present questions or questionnaires related to the material being taught, with the students then able to respond using their own mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, or notebook computers ( Cerro, 2015 ). The students can therefore use their mobile devices to review or apply what they have learned in an entertaining way, by merging games, learning, and new technologies during the educational process ( Parra-González and Segura-Robles, 2019 ). In Spain, Kahoot! Has become one of the most popular entertainment-based digital learning tools in recent years, with the advantages of being free, easy to use, and effective in terms of improving classroom dynamics. It was conceived in 2013 by Professor Alf Inge Wang at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with the aim of generating enjoyable and functional educational environments ( Martínez, 2017 ).

Kahoot! Is therefore a tool that can be incorporated into a teaching curriculum to enhance interdisciplinary skills, while also effectively integrating digital technologies and communications as resources for learning. It can stimulate motivation among the students, while also assisting with collection of data regarding their learning process and their understanding of the contents being taught ( Amores-Valencia et al., 2022 ). It can also make a significant contribution to increasing the students’ active participation and commitment in the classroom, while fostering positive relationships among the various groups of students. In summary, all of this makes Kahoot! A valuable gamification tool for application during the educational process ( Urh et al., 2015 ; Gokbulut, 2020 ; López-Belmonte et al., 2020 ), and it has already been used with success in a variety of university programs, to facilitate retention of complex theoretical concepts while at the same time stimulating the students’ intrinsic motivation to learn ( Rodríguez, 2017 ).

In this context, the objective of our study is to evaluate the impact of gamification in the university educational environment, specifically among students enrolled in the Bachelor’s degree in Physiotherapy. We intend to determine how the integration of game elements, particularly through the Kahoot! Platform, influences attention, concentration, motivation, creativity, and the social skills of the students. We hypothesize that gamification not only improves these key dimensions of learning but also contributes to a greater overall satisfaction with the educational experience.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 research design and participants.

An experimental design was implemented using three groups, differentiated by their time of exposure to the game (0 min, 30 min, or 60 min per week). The sample consisted of 73 students enrolled in their second year of a Bachelor’s degree program in Physiotherapy. The following criteria were used to select the students eligible to participate: (i) enrollment in the second year of the Bachelor’s degree program in Physiotherapy; (ii) owning a smartphone; (iii) willingness to participate and signing an informed consent form. Before the study began, all eligible participants signed an informed consent form approved by the University of the Atlántico Medio’s Human Research Ethics Committee (CEI/01-007), which was designed to comply with the Declaration of Helsinki, best clinical practices, and the applicable laws and regulations. The study was conducted from September to December 2022, with registration number NCT06142812.

2.2 Intervention

The intervention carried out with Kahoot! Was meticulously planned to evaluate its effect on student learning over a four-month period. During this time, educational reinforcement sessions were organized using Kahoot! Divided into two intervention groups, differentiated by the duration of each session: one enjoyed 30-min sessions per week, while the other had 60-min sessions. A third group, which served as a control group, did not use Kahoot! For feedback, opting instead for conventional teaching methods with slide presentations.

Structured sessions with Kahoot! They were designed to consolidate the understanding of the theoretical concepts addressed in class. For this purpose, a specific questionnaire was developed in Kahoot! For each topic, composed of 15 questions, each with three answer options. These questionnaires were administered right at the end of the theoretical presentations of each unit, with the purpose of reinforcing and evaluating the students’ immediate understanding of the most recently taught content.

The dynamics of the sessions with Kahoot! Encouraged active participation: students entered the game through a unique PIN, using nicknames to maintain anonymity. The questions were projected on a large screen and accompanied by four visual options, along with a countdown timer, adding an element of gamification and friendly competition to the activity. Students selected the answer they considered correct using their mobile devices connected to the Internet. Immediately after answering, they received feedback on their choice, allowing the instructor to clarify doubts and explain the reasons behind the correct and incorrect answers.

This method of immediate feedback, added to the competitive and playful structure of the sessions, not only encouraged the attention and interest of the students, but also promoted an active and participatory learning environment. At the end of each questionnaire, a leaderboard was displayed with the names of the students who had obtained the five best scores, based on accuracy and speed of response, which added an additional motivating element for the participants ( Parra-González and Segura-Robles, 2019 ). The possibility of downloading the results of the sessions allowed the instructor to identify both the questions that had presented the most difficulties to the students and those that required additional support, thus facilitating more personalized and effective teaching. Since the Kahoot! App is free and easy to use, both instructors and students have considered it to be an essential tool for enhancing classroom dynamics ( Amores-Valencia et al., 2022 ).

2.3 Outcomes

As part of this study, data was collected at the beginning of the research and again after the intervention period had ended. Socio-demographic data related to the participants was also compiled, such as their age, sex, income level, and any learning difficulties.

To ensure validity, the chosen measures underwent extensive review by experts in the field to assess their appropriateness for the study population and research objectives. Additionally, a pilot test was conducted to evaluate the clarity and understandability of the measures for participants. Furthermore in this study, reliability was ensured through several methods. First, standardized procedures were followed consistently during data collection to minimize measurement error and variability. This included providing clear instructions to participants, using standardized assessment tools, and conducting assessments under similar conditions for all participants.

The Spanish version of the d2 Test of Attention ( Seisdedos, 2012 ) can be used to evaluate selective attention and concentration in a classroom context. This test asks each participant to carefully check what is written on each line, from left to right, then cross out all instances of the letter “d” that have two small lines around them (two lines above, two lines below, or one above and one below). Those elements are considered relevant, while all other combinations (the letters “d” and “p” with other combinations of lines or no lines) are included as “distractors” and should not be crossed out. The participant is given 20 s to complete each line. In addition to demonstrating convergent and divergent validity, this test has been found to have excellent reliability, with both Cronbach’s alpha and test–retest reliability ranging between 0.90 and 0.97 ( Pawlowski, 2020 ).

The Creative Intelligence Test (CREA) ( Corbalán, 2006 ) evaluates creative intelligence by asking questions about an image. First, before the image is displayed, the participant fills in spaces using the information provided. The image is then displayed, and the participant’s task is to formulate as many questions as possible. Those questions are then assessed using specific guidelines, with positive scores given to appropriate questions, and questions that do not fit the context penalized. Additional points are awarded for compound questions. The final point score is calculated by taking into account the number of questions, omissions, canceled responses, and extra points. A high score (75–99 points) indicates excellent creative skills, a medium score (26–74 points) indicates a moderate level of creativity, and a low score (1–25 points) suggests limited creative capacity.

The student capabilities subscale of the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) developed by Kember and Leung (2009) and Gargallo et al. (2018) was also used to compile data regarding the students’ own reflections on their development of generic capabilities. This subscale contains 16 items that measure 8 aspects of capability: critical thinking (2 items), creative thinking (2 items), self-managed learning (2 items), adaptability (2 items), problem solving (2 items), communication skills (2 items), interpersonal skills and group work (2 items), and computer literacy (2 items). The participants’ responses are recorded using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 5 (“strongly agree”) to 1 (“strongly disagree”). The questionnaire also includes two open-ended questions to obtain comments about the best aspect and the aspect that most needs improvement. In this study, the capabilities subscale showed high reliability, with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.86 and 0.92.

2.3.1 Sample size calculation.

Our study has been based on detecting a minimum clinically relevant change in the variables used to measure attention, creative intelligence, and SEQ capabilities. Using a power analysis, we determined that a sample size of 73 participants would give us a power of 80% for detecting these changes, using a 0.05 significance level and a realistic estimation of the effects based on previous research ( Chan et al., 2021 ).

2.3.2 Statistical analysis

An exploratory analysis was performed using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, to confirm the pre-training and post-training normality of the data. The results showed that the data had a normal distribution ( p  > 0.05), which justified the use of parametric tests. The pre-training and post-training values were presented as a mean and standard deviation, and a paired Student’s t -test was used to assess the statistical significance ( p  < 0.05) of the changes observed, using a stratified analysis based on time of exposure to the game. As part of the multivariate analysis of covariation (MANCOVA), the potential confusion effect caused by the variable that recorded the students’ sex was evaluated for all of the result variables, along with the interaction between the sex and time variables.

The total sample consisted of 73 students with a mean age of 19.51 ± 0.95 years, all with attention difficulties, and with a higher proportion of male students (65.8%). Most of the students (76.7%) said that they enjoyed playing games on their mobile devices, with 39.7% reporting their daily use as between 1 and 60 min and the other 37% reporting more than 60 min of daily use ( Table 1 ).

Table 1 . Characteristics of the sample population.

A variety of tests were given to the students both before and after the intervention ( Table 2 ). For the group that had no exposure to the game, there only significant differences observed were in the scores for adaptability (difference in means 4.42; p  = 0.02), while those who played Kahoot! For 1–60 min each day showed differences only in their scores for adaptability (difference in means 29.66; p  = 0.01) and computer literacy (44.48; p  = 0.004).

Table 2 . Pre- and post-intervention comparison for each form of evaluation, stratified by game time.

Finally, the students with more than 60 min of daily game playing showed improvement in most of the tests performed, with some of the most notable results being those for attention (difference in means 91.48), total attention (difference in means 83.70), creative intelligence (difference in means 80.00), critical thinking (difference in means 6.47), creative thinking (difference in means 4.70) self-managed learning (difference in means 8.57), adaptability (difference in mean 6.94), problem solving (difference in means 8.18), and computer literacy (difference in means 5.41), with these differences all significant ( p  < 0.001). However, there were no differences observed in relation to communication skills ( p  = 0.59) or interpersonal relationships and group work ( p  = 0.658). Furthermore, it is important to consider that, although students who played for more than 60 min daily showed significant improvements in a wide range of cognitive skills, we cannot disregard the influence of other external factors that may have contributed to these results. For instance, students’ personal commitment level to the game, their intrinsic motivation to participate, and their familiarity with the Kahoot! Platform could have influenced the magnitude and direction of the observed improvements. Likewise, students’ socio-economic and cultural background, as well as their prior educational level, might have played a role in their response to the game and in the acquisition of cognitive skills. Therefore, conducting more detailed analyses that take into account these potential confounding variables is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the effects of gaming on students’ cognitive development.

The multivariate analysis confirmed the significance of the differences seen when evaluating the group with the most game time exposure. The sex variable was discarded to eliminate any confusion effect, and the interaction between the game minutes and sex variables was also discarded, which indicates that regardless of a student’s sex, more than 60 min of game time can produce significant, beneficial differences, with the highest levels of impact on attention, creative thinking, adaptability, problem solving, and computer literacy (Wilks’ lambda = 1.99, p  = 0.010) ( Table 3 ).

Table 3 . MANCOVA analysis adjusted for the daily game minutes variable and its interaction with the sex variable.

4 Discussion

The purpose of this research has been to evaluate the effects that use of the Kahoot! App on mobile devices may have on attention, creative intelligence, and the SEQ student capacities subscale, for students enrolled in their second year of the Bachelor’s degree program in Physiotherapy at the University of Jaén.

In our increasingly digital world, the use of digital tools in education has generated debates regarding their impact on student development ( Martínez, 2017 ). Therefore, to help understand the potential role of technology in contemporary education, the present study has used differentiated groups of university students to address the question of whether regular use of the Kahoot! Platform, for more than 60 min per day, can improve essential skills such as attention, creativity, critical thinking, self-managed learning, adaptability, problem solving, and computer literacy.

In agreement with previous studies ( Ismail and Mohammad, 2017 ; Licorish et al., 2018 ), our results support the conclusion that integrating platforms such as Kahoot! Into the educational process can produce multiple benefits. However, we should emphasize that the differences observed in our study are primarily seen in the group with the most time spent using that app (> 60 min per day), which would support the conclusion that the duration of use of such platforms may have a notable influence on the skills developed, because of various factors that may affect their impact. Use in the classroom for longer time periods allows deeper immersion in the dynamics of the game, which leads to development of a wider range of skills. By dedicating more time to use of the app, the students are faced with a greater diversity of challenges and situations that can stimulate various cognitive aspects ( Rodríguez, 2017 ).

The complexity and variety of the challenges presented during longer usage sessions provide fertile ground for strengthening critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This is supported by previous research results demonstrating that additional usage time allows a more diverse set of problems to be incorporated, which in turn promotes development of more complex and sophisticated skills, and that prolonged use also allows for better adaptation to the game’s format and specific dynamics ( Chacon and Janssen, 2020 ). In addition, longer periods of immersion may improve the students’ ability to adapt to other similar platforms and engage effectively with similar digital environments. Ongoing exposure to the Kahoot! Interface and mechanics during longer sessions may also increase computer literacy, which is supported by the observation that as students become more familiar with a platform’s features and characteristics, their competencies related to digital environments also improve ( Wang and Thair, 2020 ).

With regard to specific skills, it has been demonstrated that in our modern context saturated with digital distractions, where attention has itself become an essential capability, the use of tools such as Kahoot! Can help students maintain their attention levels during longer sessions. This may be due to the fact that the platform’s interactive and competitive format encourages sustained concentration during educational tasks, offering an effective alternative to the distractions commonly existing in the digital environment ( Aivaz and Teodorescu, 2022 ), and also the fact that prolonged engagement with challenging activities, such as interactive games, enhances attention ( Fatima et al., 2019 ). In relation to this, the game’s interactive and challenging dynamics help improve concentration, mental resilience, and absorption of information, which are all important aspects of paying attention to details and increasing cognitive performance ( Martinez et al., 2023 ).

Creative intelligence, as another essential aspect of student development, is stimulated by the entertaining nature of the Kahoot! Platform, because answering questions quickly, or creating questionnaires, inspires innovative thought in the participants and helps them generate original ideas. These effects have also been reported by Calvo and López-Rodríguez (2021) , who found that spending longer time periods with activities such as those offered by Kahoot! Encourages exploration of diverse ideas and inspires creativity. In addition, the improvement seen in critical thinking skills may be due to the need to confront challenges presented in real time, because analyzing information, making quick decisions, and evaluating options contributes to the development of skills that are applicable not only in the academic world, but also in everyday life ( Jin and Ji, 2021 ).

In addition, the results observed in this study regarding self-managed learning associated with the use of Kahoot! Can be attributed to the fact that it allows the players to advance at their own pace. This is also in agreement with previous research results that have emphasized independence as a driver of self-regulation and time management, which leads to continual improvement in terms of interaction with the contents being taught ( Grabner-Hagen and Kingsley, 2023 ).

With regard to adaptability, our study indicates a clear association between exposure to the Kahoot! Platform and significant improvement in this skill among the students. This improvement was observed in all groups exposed to use of the game, although it was more pronounced among the students who used Kahoot! For more than 60 min each day. Given the critical importance of adapting to new contexts, both in the educational and work environments, prolonged immersion in Kahoot! Seems to facilitate better adjustment to the challenges presented during the game. This factor has potentially influenced the notable improvement seen in this skill, and has also been previously reported in the literature ( Schmidt et al., 2011 ).

Problem solving is enhanced by the wide diversity of challenges presented when using Kahoot! The variety of situations and questions stimulates the students’ ability to quickly adapt to changing environments, and to find effective solutions in shorter periods of time ( Kalleny, 2020 ). When the students dedicate more time to the game, they are able to experiment with different approaches to solving problems, which significantly contributes to their development of this skill. The game presents a wide range of situations that require adaptation to changing environments, and generation of effective answers in contexts where time is limited ( Vlachopoulos and Makri, 2017 ). In addition, other researchers have reported that prolonged exposure facilitates experimentation with multiple strategies when solving problems, which also strengthens this skill ( Donkin and Rasmussen, 2021 ; Teunisse et al., 2022 ).

With regard to self-managed learning, our study demonstrates that prolonged exposure to the game can be beneficial ( Primack et al., 2012 ). This could be explained by the fact that the independence offered by Kahoot! Allows the players to advance at their own pace ( Nieto-Escamez and Roldán-Tapia, 2021 ). The other studies included in a systematic review indicate that this independence facilitates more personalized interaction with the contents being taught, which has probably helped contribute to the improvement observed, and this can in turn stimulate self-regulation and time management ( Edisherashvili et al., 2022 ).

Finally, computer literacy is strengthened by regular use of Kahoot! ( Neureiter et al., 2020 ). Familiarity with digital interfaces and technological tools, and the ability to navigate smoothly through their contents, are important competencies in our increasingly digital world ( Cortellazzo et al., 2019 ), and these are skills that can be strengthened through a deeper understanding of the platform’s features and characteristics. In contrast to previously reported results, however, we found that shorter sessions (from 1 to 60 min) tend to have effects focused on more immediate skills, such as adaptability and computer literacy. These shorter periods of interaction may not be sufficient to allow deeper exposure to more complex aspects involving critical thinking or creativity, which require more time and ongoing practice. It is also worth emphasizing that this study’s results did not show differences in communication skills or interpersonal relationships, regardless of the exposure time, which contrasts with the results reported by Chan et al. (2021) , where the authors found differences in communication skills ( p  = 0.04) at the end of the course.

Another relevant limitation lies in the sample population, which is restricted to university students of a specific course at a particular institution. This limitation may restrict the generalizability of the findings to other student populations or educational contexts. Furthermore, the study design may not fully address the complexity of the effects of Kahoot use, as the specific learning context and individual characteristics of participants that could influence the results were not considered.

To address these limitations and advance the field of gamification in education, it is suggested to conduct more specific and targeted research. For example, future studies could consider including multiple educational institutions and educational levels to evaluate the transferability of the effects of Kahoot use in different contexts. Additionally, it would be beneficial to incorporate more detailed measures of individual participant characteristics, such as cognitive ability level, learning styles, and prior experience with technology, to better understand the factors that may modulate the developmental impact of Kahoot. Of skills. Likewise, it is suggested to explore the optimal duration and frequency of use of Kahoot to maximize educational benefits and avoid possible adverse effects, such as cognitive fatigue or loss of interest. These investigations could contribute significantly to the understanding of the role of gamification in education and provide guidance for effective and evidence-based educational practices.

In summary, ongoing use of Kahoot! During longer sessions could serve as a catalyst for development of critical skills in university students. However, it is essential to maintain a balance between the use of technology and other educational activities, to ensure comprehensive and diversified student development. In addition, the amount of time dedicated to technology-based activities may be a critical factor for allowing deeper, better consolidated development. This is because longer periods of use provide opportunities for more significant improvement, by giving students more time for in-depth exploration, reflection, and perfection of their capabilities.

5 Conclusion

The research reported here has demonstrated that use of the Kahoot! Platform for more than 60 min per day can produce significant results in terms of improving specific skills. This use for longer periods of time has revealed notable benefits in terms of attention, creativity, critical thinking, adaptability, problem solving, and computer literacy, therefore supporting integration of Kahoot! Into the educational process at universities. Our data suggest that inclusion of these digital activities for longer time periods promotes development of complex skills, and represents an effective means of cognitive enhancement and acquisition of essential skills. However, it is also worth emphasizing the need for a suitable balance between the use of technology and other educational activities, to ensure comprehensive and diversified student development. Ongoing use of these platforms provides opportunities for deeper, more exhaustive improvement of cognitive skills, which highlights the importance of dedicating sufficient time to activities of this type, to allow full development of the students’ capabilities.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Atlántico Medio (CEI/01-007). The studies were conducted in accordance with local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

AA-A: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft. YC-C: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. MC-F: Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft. YR-C: Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. AG-M: Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: gamification, teaching innovation, university education, creative intelligence, concentration, attention, generic capabilities

Citation: Aibar-Almazán A, Castellote-Caballero Y, Carcelén-Fraile MdC, Rivas-Campo Y and González-Martín AM (2024) Gamification in the classroom: Kahoot! As a tool for university teaching innovation. Front. Psychol . 15:1370084. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1370084

Received: 24 January 2024; Accepted: 05 March 2024; Published: 14 March 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Aibar-Almazán, Castellote-Caballero, Carcelén-Fraile, Rivas-Campo and González-Martín. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Yolanda Castellote-Caballero, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Kahoot! is abiding by the international sanctions regime, and does not allow sales to sanctioned individuals or entities in Russia. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kahoot! initiated a process to suspend offering of all commercial services in Russia. This includes but is not limited to online sales, assisted sales, app store sales and prohibiting sales to Russian corporations and organizations.

Prioritizing safe and secure use of the Kahoot! platform

As part of our mission to make learning awesome, and as education remains a fundamental human right, we offer teachers, students and personal users free access to our platform. We do this in more than 200 countries and regions in a spirit similar to public commons services, such as Wikipedia. 

Similarly, inclusivity is one of Kahoot!’s overarching values. As such, our aim is to, whenever and wherever possible, offer children, schools and others the opportunity to use digital tools for impactful education and learning, irrespective of their background or location. This has been our guiding principle also for offering our service in Russia.

Among our first responses to the crisis was to swiftly expand our global moderation team’s monitoring on all Russia-related content to safeguard the integrity of the platform. 

However, as the situation continues to escalate, it is vital that we are able to ensure that our platform is used according to our own guidelines and standards. Therefore, in addition to suspending sales, we will be taking all possible and necessary steps to suspend access to Kahoot! services in Russia, with the eventual exception of self-study mode which will feature only content verified by Kahoot!.

This will enable students, school children and other individual users to continue their learning journeys both safely and responsibly. We will continue to assess ways in which our services can be offered safely and responsibly to support all learners and educators, also those based in Russia. 

Supporting our employees 

At Kahoot!, we are not just a team in name, we are a team in practice. As such, we are committed to the well-being of our employees, especially those with ties to Ukraine, or those that in other ways are particularly affected by the war. We are providing these colleagues with any support we can. 

Acknowledging the current situation, the Kahoot! Group made an emergency aid donation to Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council. This is a contribution to support life-saving assistance and protection for innocent Ukrainian children, families and refugees. 

As the situation in Ukraine continues to develop our teams across the company are actively monitoring the crisis so that we can respond in the most responsible and supportive way possible. 

Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine, their loved ones, and anyone affected by this crisis. 

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5th Judicial Problem-Solving Court Celebrates Graduation in York

The 5th Judicial Problem-Solving Court in York celebrated the graduation of four of its participants on June 10, 2024. Judge James C. Stecker presided over the ceremony, joined by York County Board Members, Seward County Board Members, Probation staff, family, and friends. The ceremony marks the culmination of an intensive program involving comprehensive mental health treatment, intensive community supervision, and full accountability for the graduates.

A problem-solving court graduation is a time for past and current participants to reflect on their successes and challenges throughout the program. It is a day dedicated to celebrating the graduates' accomplishments, filled with laughter, joy, and well-deserved recognition. Congratulations to Michael, Preston, Ashley, and Cindy on their achievements!

Problem-Solving courts are an alternate route through the criminal justice system for nonviolent drug-related offenders. They utilize a specialized team process that functions within the existing court structure. The courts are designed to reduce recidivism and substance use among individuals with substance use disorders. The court aims to protect public safety and increase the participant’s likelihood of successful rehabilitation by utilizing validated risk and need assessments, early and individualized behavioral health treatment, frequent and random chemical testing, incentives, sanctions, and other rehabilitative and ancillary services.

For additional information, please contact:

Morgan Campbell, Problem-Solving Court Coordinator

Phone: (402) 362-6540           Email: [email protected]

Photo: Judge Stecker with each of the graduates: Michael, Ashley, Cindy, and Preston.

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