The Application Of Gamification Elements In English Vocabulary Memorization In Junior High School

Gamification sprang up in the business world,and in the beginning,researchers simply applied gamification elements to non-gamification software,and later,as the field of vision widened,people gradually applied gamification elements to a variety of non-gameplay fields.Therefore,game has more and more profound influence in other fields with the development of the gamification industry,especially in transforming people's way of thinking about traditional Education.As a kind of stimulation for feedback,gamification elements help stimulate students' extrinsic motivations,and then turn to internalization,which leads more and more researchers to pay attention to the application of the game in the field of education.However,in the field of education,there are still a lot of gaps in the study of how to choose gamification elements which is the heart of the practice.Selecting 81 students of two ninth grade classes in a junior high school in Hangzhou,this thesis chose English vocabulary dictation and memorization as the experimental procedure after evaluating various activities in daily English teaching,to explore the effects of four of the most common gamification elements that were most likely to be applied in English teaching according to the theoretical perspectives of gamification elements.The questionnaires in the qualitative research explored the memorial situation of students before the experiments and the psychological state after the experiments respectively,while the interviews with the teachers supplemented the view towards the experiments of teachers on the front.In the quantitative research,an experimental class(N=40)and a controlled class(N=41)with similar level was confirmed through pre-test,and the students in the experimental class received four different gamification elements within four weeks— Achievements,Badges,Leaderboards and Points,then together participated in the post-tests with controlled class.This study examined the effects of four gamification elements on students' memorization effects through qualitative and quantitative research,and explored the impacts of different gamification elements on different groups of students,as well as the extent to which they have an impact on students.This study found that:(1)After using gamification elements,memorization effects of students has been improved to varied degrees.(2)Different gamification elements will have different kind of impacts on different groups,and different students will make progress or regress as a result.(3)The extent of progress or regression brought about by different gamification elements is not the same.The main findings revealed that: Firstly,English teachers should choose the appropriate gamification elements according to the actual situation specific level of students,and combine isolate gamification element together in order to produce more positive effects;Secondly,teachers should pay attention to the degree in utilizing gamification elements,so as not to prevent students from internalizing the extrinsic motivation contained in the gamification elements into their own intrinsic motives;Finally,teachers should help students accept a variety of gamification elements for helping them to adapt to future learning and life in advance.At the same time,this research acknowledged that there were still limitations.In this study,only four gamification elements were discussed without knowing the effects of other gamification elements,and attention was paid to working memory,and the results of long-time memory were slightly blurred,which means the emphasis was put on the actual ability about using language in the particular short term.