Gamification: Teacher proactive support and student engagement during Covid-19 and beyond

The value of gamification as a creative learning approach is well supported in the higher education literature. However, gamification studies addressing game build designs, learning tactics, and student engagement have not instilled confidence and readiness in teachers to implement gamification in their curriculum. Therefore, this study aims to investigate teachers’ proactive support of gamification implementation and student engagement in their tertiary education syllabus. Employing self-determination theory, this study tests whether proactive teacher support of gamification implementation influences student engagement in challenging times like COVID-19 via student psychological needs satisfaction. Drawing on data from 119 Australian university students, the partial mediation results indicate that students’ perception of teachers’ proactive support in gamified activities influenced students’ psychological needs, satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, thus leading to student engagement. The findings inform the benefits of student engagement and should enhance teacher confidence to include gamification in their curriculum designs.