Educators have incorporated technologies designed to ‘gamify’ or increase the fun and reward in classroom learning. One of them, the student response systems (SRS), is increasingly used, but little is known about how it can best be employed to create positive learning climates. Informed by self-determination theory (SDT), a study - separated into two experiments - investigated the role of SRS as an educational tool and its relationship with academic well-being outcomes that have previously been linked to positive learning environments. Participants (n=30) in a pilot study were randomly assigned to a two-month experiment with two conditions: half used the SRS while the rest were taught the same syllabus with the traditional way. We found that academic well-being increased in the SRS class but stayed stable in the traditional class. Study 1 further investigated the role of SRS as an educational tool and its relationship with support for autonomy, relatedness, and competence needs of SDT and downstream academic well-being outcomes. Students (n=120) participated in five within-subject conditions that compared the motivational climates of teamwork, competition, and choice to anonymous SRS engagement and traditional learning. Results showed that students’ psychological need satisfaction, and in turn their academic well-being was increased when SRS was implemented using supportive motivational climates.

A field experiment conducted across an academic semester tested the impact of a gamified experiential learning intervention strategically framing a student response system (SRS) to maximize student engagement through their technology use in class. Participants ( n = 123) aged 9–16 years received an experimental intervention designed to foster intrinsic motivation through optimally challenging engagement. To achieve this, the intervention utilized teamwork, made friendly competence-enhancing competition salient, and created choice. In a comparison condition, students used SRS without these additional enhancements. Students were surveyed at three time points. The experimental intervention reported increasing psychological need satisfaction for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and greater academic well-being. An observer rating demonstrated more classroom behaviors indicative of intrinsic motivation as compared to the comparison condition. The effects of the intervention increasing student-reported and observer-rated academic well-being were due to more immediate beneficial effects of the gamified experiential condition fostering basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence.