Social influence of game-based learning and students' academic performance

Resumen

The use of game-based platforms for learning has slowly become a habit in university classrooms. Yet, there is limited evidence in favor of the pedagogical benefits associated with their use. Our paper focuses on the Quizizz platform to explore the opportunities that it opens-up for learning at University and analyze if there is a relationship between the social influence leading to this platform acceptation and the student´s academic performance from its real use. To measure academic performance a formative assessment was applied, as ongoing process of evaluating students’ competencies and skills. The data were taken from a pedagogical experience with Quizizz applied in different masters/graduate classroom groups (a total of 198 university students), and from a survey about the social influence that was applied to participants (response rate 85.36%). Several multivariate analyses on the data, including factorial analysis and ANOVA tests, were carried out. Nearly 60% of the students valued positively - values higher than the mean factor score- the social influence perceived leading to accept Quizizz to learn. The results showed a good overall fit for the social influence measurement model, obtaining good fits expressed in factor loads, as well as an acceptable composite reliability index (0.91) and convergent validity of the model (0.79). As we expected a high proportion of the variance of student academic performance (almost 50%) was explained by the social influence of Quizizz. Our research highlights the importance of a critical reflection in the role of social pressure explaining the student academic performance and the classroom dynamics.