Understanding Undergraduate Students' Flow State in Gamified and Non-Gamified Educational Systems: A Qualitative Case Study

In this full research paper, we provide a qualitative view of how undergraduate students experienced flow state dimensions (i.e., challenge-skill balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, total concentration, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time and autotelic experience) in a gamified educational and a non-gamified educational system. Background: When in a flow state, individuals experience deep immersion and focus on tasks. Encouraging educational experiences toward flow is important because this construct is linked to cognition (academic performance) and behavior (engagement). Gamification has been implemented to bring students to a flow state. However, despite several studies (mostly quantitative) little is known about how the flow state is experienced in gamified educational systems. Research Questions: Advancing the literature, we answered the following research question: how do students experience flow state when performing tasks using a gamified and non-gamified educational system? Methodology: 68 students from 20 countries participated in an experiment. They were randomly assigned to an experimental group (a gamified system with 10 different gamification elements based on Self-determination theory) and a control group (the same system without gamification). Immediately after the experiment, we asked them to share some thoughts from their experience openly. We then conducted a qualitative study based on Thematic Analysis with 18 of them who volunteered for further interviews. Findings: We found that students who completed questions in the non-gamified version acknowledged time and social pressure as elements that sustained their engagement. However, we did not intentionally expose them to these game elements. A sense of competence emerged strongly as they completed the educational tasks through the system. We found different nuances of competition, including self-competition, associated with the sense of flow in both groups. The findings also suggest that the tasks play a role in the sense of flow they experienced.