Investigating the Impact of Kahoot! on Students’ Engagement, Motivation, and Learning Outcomes: Ifrane Directorate as a case study

This paper shapes the landscape of an empirical research study on applying gamification to education. The study investigated students' instructional journey capitalizing on a game built around a student response system, called Kahoot! [Often cited as a descendant of “Personal Response Systems” (PRSs)]. The study targeted 97 students, aged between 16 and 18 years old (54 male and 43 female) belonging to three 2nd year baccalaureate classes at an EFL class in a public senior high school in Ifrane Directorate, Fes-Meknes Academy, Morocco. Data were collected using a survey whose reliability was tested. Quantitative data were statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics. The main goal of this study was to find out the impact of Kahoot! on engagement, motivation, learning outcomes, and attitudes towards ICT integration in future learning experiences. The research revealed that a large proportion of students were generally positive about ICT use in class practices, in general, and Kahoot! in particular. The findings are consistent with those of Plump and LaRosa (2017) and Wang (2015) which came to the conclusion that students' motivation, engagement, and learning outcomes can be enhanced through game-based response systems, citing Kahoot! as a case in point.