The impact of an online gamified approach embedded with self-regulated learning support on students' reading performance and intrinsic motivation: A randomized controlled trial

Background: Morphological awareness (MA) is the awareness and ability to manipulate morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a language. It is identified as a strong cognitive precursor of word reading and reading comprehension. The current MA instructions are limited to classroom settings and delivered by teachers or experimenters. Few studies have included technology and its novel features to deliver MA instructions. Objectives: This study proposes a gamified learning approach embedded with self-regulated learning support for MA learning and examines its effects on improving English reading performance and intrinsic motivation among junior secondary grade students who learn English as a foreign language. Methods: This study adopted a randomized controlled trial design. Participants (N = 104) were randomly assigned into one of three conditions: self-regulated gamified programme, gamified programme, or non-gamified programme. Students received 16 sessions of instructions (30 min/session) and were evaluated on reading abilities (i.e., MA, word reading and reading comprehension) and intrinsic motivation before and after the programme implementation. Results and conclusions: Results from repeated measures ANOVA and follow-up ANCOVA showed that while the two gamified groups demonstrated greater improvement in MA (i.e., near transfer effect) and intrinsic motivation than non-gamified group, only the self-regulated gamified group showed more gains in multisyllabic word reading (i.e., far transfer effect) than non-gamified group. There was no significant time X group interaction effect on reading comprehension. Implications: Taken together, this research suggests gamification leads to better morphology learning and increases students' intrinsic motivation. The incorporation of self-regulated learning in gamification is recommended to achieve the far transfer effect on multisyllabic word reading.