Tamarah Smith, PhD

        Many psychology students have negative attitudes towards statistics and these attitudes correlate with low statistics course grades. Gamification is an ideal approach for improving statistics attitudes and learning as it adapts game elements with the purpose of increasing motivation and thereby learning. I have developed a gamified curriculum for introductory statistics.

 

Materials are available here: https://osf.io/et6nb/

 

        In testing the gamified modules to a control group, data showed a large effect of gamification on students’ perceived competence, affect and value towards statistics as well as test scores. Importantly, test score gains persisted one semester later only for gamification participants.

 

Read the full results here:

Smith, T. (in press). Gamified modules for an introductory statistics course and their impact on attitudes and learning.  Simulation & Gaming.