Abstract:

In recent years, the application of game design elements in non-game contexts such as education has been used to motivate and increase students' learning and retention. From a managerial perspective course satisfaction but also recommendation (word of mouth) are important indicators of quality education. Moreover, Master Degree programs awarded with Quality Accreditations by national organisations (i.e. ANECA, AVAP, etc..) must achieve higher levels of satisfaction among students every year. Because gamification can increase students’ satisfaction with their learning process, Master Degree managers can use gamification to increase students’ satisfaction with the programme.

Despite these managerial and academic relevance, little is known about individual beliefs that can lead students to increase their satisfaction and positive word of mouth of new learning methodologies such as gamification. This research aims to fill this gap in the academic literature by focusing on how the use of gamification methodologies can improve Master Degree student's satisfaction and recommendation intentions (positive word of mouth). Of the students of the Official Master Degree in Marketing and Market Research at the University of Valencia, it was the Communication students who participated in this research. A gamified activity was developed in March 2016 using online interactive quiz Kahoot, which has been used by more than 30 millions of teachers since was created in 2011.

Students worked in teams. After the Kahoot, all participants filled a questionnaire. Correlation analysis was run in order to assess the impact of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment on students’ satisfaction with Kahoot along with peer recommendation to take part in Kahoot activities in the future.

Keywords:

Gamification, satisfaction, word of mouth, master degree programs, enjoyment, student`s beliefs.