Gamification in teacher education: Enhancing the motivation of pre-service primary school teachers

Abstract

Gamification has emerged as an effective pedagogical approach for enhancing student motivation and professional competence in higher education. This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a gamification-based instructional system designed to enhance the motivation of pre-service primary school teachers. A mixed-methods research design combined theoretical analysis with a pedagogical experiment involving 104 first-year undergraduate students in Primary Education, randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 52) and a control group (n = 52). The intervention integrated digital gamification tools, interactive learning activities, and targeted pedagogical conditions. The experimental group demonstrated significantly greater improvement than the control group. The proportion of students achieving creative and professional levels increased from 26.9% to 73.1% for the motivational criterion and from 26.9% to 71.2% for the content-activity criterion, while the proportion at the low level decreased from 42.3% to 7.7% and from 40.4% to 9.6%, respectively. Statistical analysis confirmed significant between-group differences following the intervention (t > 1.967, p < 0.05). The findings demonstrate that the systematic integration of gamification into digitally supported teacher education significantly enhances students' motivation and professional competence.