Supporting data for “Investigating the Implementation and Effects of Personalized Gamification on Student Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Engagement”

The dataset is to support a PhD thesis. This thesis aims to explore the implementation and effects of personalized gamification on student engagement. This thesis includes five empirical studies, Study One aims to develop and validate a new player type model in gamified learning. Study Two aims to examine the feasibility of using cognitive diagnosis models to profile player types. Study Three aims to examine students’ adoption of a personalized gamified learning system, which incorporates the validated player type model and algorithm from Study One and Two. Study Four aims to examine the effectiveness of personalized gamification on student engagement in comparison to the widely used one-size-fits-all gamification. The personalized gamified learning activities were delivered through the system examined in Study Three. Study Five aims to address the lack of student agency in the fixed personalized gamification method in Study Four, by investigated the practices and effects of integrating personalization and customization in gamified learning environments.

The target participants in this thesis were Asian college students. Specifically, Study One and Two focused on the same group of 547 Asian college students. Study Three included 32 participants. Study Four included 65 participants, with 98% response rate (64 out of 65) to the questionnaire, 56 participating in the final exam, and 20 voluntarily participating in the interview. Study Five included 124 participants, with 95% response rate (118 out of 124) to the questionnaire, 111 participating in the final exam.