The Influence of Gamification on High School Students’ Motivation in Geometry Lessons

Review 1

Comment

Response

1. Literary sources: The actual list of publications has several shortcomings. Not only is it very short, it is also usually an outdated resource. It is evident that the main editor of the post did not try to check the formats too much, since the source number 18 is only doi and a note is also inserted in the list.

The list of references has been thoroughly updated, focusing mainly on studies produced in the last 5 year. Some, because of their importance and relevance to the topics of the study could older than that.  

2. The theoretical part of the work does not seem to be cited enough. Since there are often citations at the end of paragraphs, the text feels like a reworking of the student's thesis. With this remark, I am not trying to touch the authors, rather I am just pointing out the fact of how the text works.

The lit review has been updated and organized in a fashion consistent with the main conceptualization included in the study.

3. The authors define motivation based on 20 years old literary sources.

This has been changed to comply with the reviewer suggestion, the conceptualization is supported by current and relevant references.

4. Almost no space is devoted to the issue of gamification in the theoretical part.

Gamification has a subsection now in which it is explained and properly cited.

5. Within the framework of chapter 3.2.2, ideas should be individual research tools, it must be clear how they were validated, at what intervals it is possible for the respondent to move, etc. Links to citation sources no longer have space here. I recommend linking with 3.2.4

This suggestion has been incorporated. The sections in questions have been merged and reorganised for better comprehension. Information of validation was also included.

The Learning Process Motivation Evaluation Questionnaire (EMPA) questionnaire is an instrument created and validated in Spain, which consists of 33 items that provide information on motivation, with a Cronbach's alpha validation index of 0.93, in global motivation. For the Chilean context, the questionnaire was validated with a sample of 248 subjects and included 23 items from the original questionnaire, the reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach's alpha of 0.925.

6. Chapter 3.2.3 is completely useless. Hypothesis testing must be obvious to the student as well. On the contrary, I lack my own definition of hypotheses here.

Alternative hypotheses have been presented before each formula for greater clarity. Validation information for the EMPA instrument has also been provided.

7. The research sample of respondents is small. In addition, it is a deliberate ensemble, and a private high school. It is therefore not a representative sample, nor is it an appropriate selection. It is obvious that the researcher chose this group because he is working with students, but then one cannot expect a publication in an impactful journal.

Since this is an action research study, it reports under that methodology, with convenience sampling. However, size effect was calculated and included in the data presented in Table 3 to guarantee more reliability of the results.

8. Table 3 is a normal SPSS output, but the number of decimal places is not unified and there are more values than the authors subsequently work with. I lack information about the type of data (why parametric tests are used, etc.). Also, due to the number of respondents, I lack an effect size calculation.

The size effect calculation has been included and the decimal inconsistencies have been corrected.

9. Authors sometimes use a decimal point and sometimes a decimal point. Teké sometimes use the notation .000 and other times 0.21 (that is, with and without a zero before the decimal point/point).

This inconsistency has been corrected.

10. The discussion chapter is very poorly understood. I would expect there to be a link to a number of other sources with which the authors compare their results. Nothing like that happened here. On the contrary, there is not a single other literary source in the entire discussion. No citation even at the end (I would expect it here)

The discussion chapter has been reformulated, including updated references and citations to better explain the connections with the theory, the study findings, and previous and current research.

11. In similar research, it is common to write a chapter: "research limits", there is nothing similar here.

An subsection of the conclusions is devoted to limitations and further research.

Review 2

Comment

Response

1. Clear abstract which reveals the important recent aspect of gamification in education

2. After the presentation of the region the specific study was conducted, please add the information that it is in Chile

This has been changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

3.The first sentence needs a reference.  (introduction)

A reference has been included as the reviewer suggests.

4. the research question could be divided into two. One for the motivation and one for the academic performance.

The research question has been divided into 2 at the reviewer’s suggestion for better organisation and clarity.

5. I believe that the section 2.1.2 with only one paragraph is problematic. It is better to match the 2.1.1 with the 2.1.2 by presenting motivation as a part of the affective domain. 

The paragraphing issue has been resolved, along with the organisation of the conceptualisation of motivation as one section.

6. I believe that authors have to add a section about the use of gamification in education in general and in mathematics education in particular.

Gamification has a subsection now in which it is explained and properly cited.

Additionally, there is a concentration on geometry without presenting something about the teaching of geometry by using or not digital tools.

This issue has been resolved by including information on how geometry is usually taught in section 3.5.

7. It is important for the reader to understand the structure of the literature review and how this contributes to the establishment of the theoretical framework of the present study.

The lit review has been updated and organized in a fashion consistent with the main conceptualization included in the study.

8. end of section 2:  references are needed for all those statements 

This issue has been resolved by including citations and referencing to the conceptualisation included in the article.

9. something is wrong at the lines 147-150

The research question and the sentence starter has been corrected and better formulated.

10. which was the number of the population in order to   be able to understand the ratio of the participation at the sample. 

This information has been included now in the manuscript in the ‘participants’ section.

11. It is not clear for me how the trigonometry appears at page 9, when the study was about geometry. 

Trigonometry is a learning unit within the geometry curriculum. This has been better presented in the methodology of the study.

12. There is no discussion of the findings in relation to the theoretical framework and the other studies. 

The discussion chapter has been reformulated, including updated references and citations to better explain the connections with the theory, the study findings, and previous and current research.

13. although the use of gamification is recent and there are many studies, the references of works after 2020 are too limited. 

The list of references has been thoroughly updated, focusing mainly on studies produced in the last 5 year. Some, because of their importance and relevance to the topics of the study could older than that. 

Review 3

Comment

Response

The topic of the study is relevant, but its implementation is questionable.

We have worked on the reorganisation of the information presented in the article; we could not however know exactly what the reviewer meant by questionable. We hope that now, with all the changes suggested by the reviewers this concern can be overcome.

The title of the article does not match the content of the article. The title talks about the influence of gamification on the emotions. However, the article examines the influence of gamification on motivation and academic performance.

This has been changed to better reflect the content and research actions reported in the article.

It is recommended to strengthen the theoretical part by justifying motivation with psychological theories of motivation. We had doubts about the concept of global motivation. We doubt the correctness of its use.

The lit review has been updated and organized in a fashion consistent with the main conceptualization included in the study.

Formulation of hypotheses needs to be improved. We believe that null hypotheses should not be used. Alternatives would suffice.

Alternative hypotheses have been presented before each formula for greater clarity and the null ones have been erased at the reviewer’s suggestion.

The study cannot be classified as a longitudinal study, because the didactic sequence was planned to be implemented in trigonometry classes during 5 weeks of the academic calendar.

This issue has been resolved by including a specification since this is not strictly longitudinal due primary to length, even though it has aspects or longitudinal studies. We have consulted research methodology references and have concluded to include the term ‘short-term longitudinal study’

The discussion and conclusions replicate the research methodology. In the discussion section, we miss the comparative aspect, both theoretically and empirically.

The discussion chapter has been reformulated, including updated references and citations to better explain the connections with the theory, the study findings, and previous and current research.

The research sample is small, because the sample consists of 45 students. The reliability of the results of mathematical statistics in the case of such a small sample is questionable.

The effect size has been included to better support the reliability of the results.

Review 4

1. Keywords: They are not enough. We need to expand on this point.

This issue has been resolved, 2 more keywords have been added to better reflect to content areas of the article.

2. Authors need to show their position more clearly in approaches that include gamification in learning. It is necessary to expand the Introduction and Discussion sections. The attraction of gaming technologies has a large number of followers among teachers. Appealing to different points of view will also allow the authors to expand the list of cited literature, which in the current state does not look convincing for a scientific article.

Gamification has a subsection now in which it is explained and properly cited.

The discussion chapter has been reformulated, including updated references and citations to better explain the connections with the theory, the study findings, and previous and current research.

3. Since the authors insist on didactics, it would be convincing to give an example of a task or even several tasks on a topic that corresponds to the topic of gamification. This point will arise when reading the article from any teacher.

This issue has been resolved by including information on how geometry is usually taught in section 3.5. However, it is possible to observe examples of geometry content being taught with gamification in the didactic sequence included in the study.

Among the minor comments, I will note the following:

1. The paragraph should be more than one sentence. For example, lines 90-92 are a sentence and a final paragraph. Further in the text, the authors need to check and exclude such paragraphs by opening them or combining them with others.

Paragraphing problems have been resolved in all the manuscript.

2. Using the example of several lines, I will note: line 108 - You need to change the punctuation. Wrong " ." [13] ". Need: " [13]." line 74: wrong - [4][5], need [4,5].

These issues have been addressed and resolved throughout the text.

3. Lines 206-207: This sentence needs to be reformulated: "It is suggested that the relationship between three 206 precise variables - Motivation, Academic Achievement, and Lexicon - be determined."

Resolved

4. Line 259: the name of the table with a capital letter.

Resolved

5. In the text, the indication in brackets Table 1 (line 251) and Table 2 (line 267) - with capital letters.

Resolved

6. Line 269: Title of section 4. Results and discussion. You need to delete the word "discussion". Otherwise, why do you need section 5? The names duplicate each other.

Resolved

Review 1

Comment

Response

1. To point number 1, the authors add: "The list of references has been thoroughly updated, focusing mainly on studies produced in the last 5 years. Some, because of their importance and relevance to the topics of the study could be older than that." At this point, I would like to point out that half of the literary works are older than 5 years and not just some. For example, the following option is offered. The authors mention at the end of the text: "In this regard, a study conducted 425 by Wajeeh [40] in seventh graders learning mathematics with and without technology, 426 discovered that the students greatly favored the technology-based class. These differ-427 ences were evident across three key aspects: interest, mastery, and self-efficacy.ů In connection with this, I would like to draw attention to the text below, which connects self-efficacy with the pupil's ability to solve mathematical problems. "Smart, V.; Medová, J.; Říčan, J.; Škoda, J. Relation between Pupils' Mathematical Self-Efficacy and Mathematical Problem Solving in the Context of the Teachers' Preferred Pedagogies. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10215. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310215 "

We appreciate the reviewer suggestion. We can inform now that we have updated the references even more by replacing 5 older studies by newer ones from after 2020 to complement the support given to the discussion, continuing to focus mainly on studies produced recently. This would make up for more than half the studies being from the last 5 years.

When the reviewer alludes to the Wajeeh study (40. Wajeeh, D. Students’ motivation to learn mathematics in the robotics environment. Computers in the Schools 2022, 39(3), 230-251. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2022.2071227), we don’t know whether the comment is referring to the link between interest, mastery, and self-efficacy and mathematics as inadequate, or whether the comment refers to the fact that we should include the reference suggested in the comment. In this regard, the point we were trying to make was in fact about the link between interest, mastery, and self-efficacy and mathematics as elements that contribute to motivation, which was an aspect of the discussion under the first research question. The study by Wajeeh found that students exposed to technology-based learning or elements of it, contributed to more motivated students.

As the comment was rather unclear to us, we made no changes in this part of the manuscript. We did, however, updated the references, as mentioned before.

2. Table 3 has been changed, but there are still a few inaccuracies. I) unify how you will write the decimal places (comma or dot?), ii) if the p-level is less than 0.0001, then <.001 is written (so generally without a leading zero and with a decimal point). I drew attention to this fact last time and it was not incorporated by the authors.

We apologise for this recurrent problem, we had addressed this issue in the first round, but this change was not properly saved in the previous version.

This has been resolved in Table 3 and unified in the whole manuscript.

3. I recommend writing research limits as a separate chapter.

We believe this would fit better as a subsection of the conclusions of the study, as they were made evident as conclusions of the entire research project. This is also agreed by the other 3 reviewers, who did not suggest changes in this regard.

Review 2

Comment

Response

It is important that the revised manuscript improved the whole presentation of the work. The work is an original study at a domain with recent interest throughout the world. I believe that it contributes on the strengths and limitations of using gamification in education

We have worked on the details that could improve the presentation of the manuscript, particularly in modifying the hypotheses section for a more fluid reading.

No  further comments

Review 3

Comment

Response

The authors of the article took into account all comments. The quality of the article has improved significantly. I propose to publish an article.

Thank you.

Review 4

Comment

Response

The authors have significantly improved the article. The comments were consistently eliminated.

Thank you.

Review 1

Comment

Response

- I still believe that it is useless to write out hypotheses in such detail. However, if they are already mentioned here, it is necessary to talk about statistical significance and not only about improvement.

The hypothesis section has been reformulated previously according to the other reviewers’ comments and suggestions. We do, however, thank you for the suggestion and inform that statistical significance of hypothesis are indeed talked about in 4.1; 4.2; 4.2.1; 4.2.2; 4.2.3; and 4.2.4.1; 4.2.4.2. 

- I am glad that the measures of substantive significance (Cohen's d) were added, however, this is only a number in the table, which is not commented on in any way, although it is desirable.

This comment has been resolved, the figure has explained and commented on in section 4.1 between lines 279-282.

- As I already mentioned in my first review regarding the literature, which is really very edited: In connection with this, I would like to draw attention to the text below, which connects self-efficacy with the pupil's ability to solve mathematical problems. "Smart, V.; Medová, J.; Říčan, J.; Škoda, J. Relation between Pupils' Mathematical Self-Efficacy and Mathematical Problem Solving in the Context of the Teachers' Preferred Pedagogies. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10215. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310215 

We thank you for the suggestion and clarification, we have now included the study you brought our attention to in our reference list.