"A Carrot on a Stick" : A Qualitative Study on The Impact Gamification Has on Student Motivation and Language Accessibility in the Classroom

Sammanfattning: This study investigates how student motivation is affected by gamification and whether gamification can make English as a subject more accessible for Swedish students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) or not. Data was gathered through interviews with five teachers and analyzed through a sociocultural perspective. In the interviews, the participating teachers were asked how gamified strategies affected their students' motivation, intrinsically and extrinsically. The results indicate that there is a correlation between motivational gain and gamification. It shows that the effect of motivating students extrinsically through gamification leads them to become more engaged in their work. The results further show that it was the participants' perception that students were mostly affected by extrinsic motivation when a reward could be obtained in an activity. In terms of intrinsic motivation, the result suggests that the primary source of intrinsic motivation through gamified learning comes from the concept of fun. If something is fun, it makes you want to do it. The study also shows that English as a subject can become more accessible and depends on the teachers' ability to successfully insert gamification elements into an already working teaching environment.