Game On With Kahoot!: Effects on Vocabulary Learning and Motivation

Introduction

After the design and data collection of this study, COVID-19 turned the educational world on its head. However, computer-assisted language learning was a beneficiary of that inversion because COVID serves to reinforce the need for technological solutions for everyday classroom problems. Now more than ever, educators need an array of resources to keep learners motivated and learning in today’s rapidly changing learning environment. This paper addresses that issue via a Game-Based Student Response System (GBSRS) called Kahoot!. Kahoot! combines various pedagogical innovations, including fast formative assessment, gamification, and the students’ cell phones with the promise of increased motivation and engagement. To better understand the issues involved and the effect on learning and motivation, this study addresses the learning of vocabulary and associated intrinsic motivation in an ESL classroom in a South Korean university by proposing the following hypotheses:

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  Using Kahoot! in a Korean university EFL classroom will aid students in learning vocabulary.

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  Using Kahoot! in a Korean university EFL classroom will increase students’ intrinsic motivation.

Review Of The Literature

Those advances in technology and education continue to induce accelerating changes in pedagogical practice; therefore, situating a particular study in both time and place is critical for evaluating the utility of that research for the individual reader. This literature review seeks to position the current research project appropriately for audiences by framing this study around five notions: student response systems (SRS), gamification, Kahoot! in educational research, learning with SRS in Korean EFL, and motivation with SRS in EFL.