The Role of Gamification Elements in Enhancing Learning Motivation: Insights from Malaysian Accounting Students

Gamification has emerged in recent years as a dynamic and innovative strategy for engaging individuals across various fields, including accounting education. It serves as a powerful tool for motivating users to interact with educational systems. However, motivation is highly subjective, with different factors influencing individuals in distinct ways. Therefore, the objective of this study seeks to identify the key elements that explain how gamification drives accounting students’ motivation to learn. Employing a survey research method, data was gathered via online questionnaires from 137 undergraduate accounting students at UiTM Tapah, which represents a large population of accountancy diploma students as compared to other Private Finance Initiative (PFI) campuses. In terms of selection of accounting students to be included as a sample of this study, a simple random sampling technique was used. As the respondents are randomly selected from the sampling frame, all students have an equivalent chance to participate in the study. The findings indicate that two constructs of the ARCS model, attention (AT) and relevance (RV), significantly and positively influence students’ learning motivation through gamification. This study underscores the importance of students’ attention to focus their efforts before effective learning can occur and necessity for activities to be relevant, allowing students to recognize the present and future value of a course to motivate their participation in learning activities. All hypotheses were supported which consistent with prior research. This study is also expected to contribute valuable implications for policymakers and university administrators aiming to use technology to enhance student engagement and improve learning outcomes.