Game elements enhance engagement and mitigate attrition in online learning tasks

A growing body of literature suggests that adding game elements to learning tasks indirectly influences the learning process by increasing engagement with the tasks. The present study aims to advance learning engagement research by examining an often neglected subcomponent of behavioral engagement, attrition. Implementing two equivalent versions of a learning task, differing solely in the presence of game elements, allowed unequivocal attribution of any effect on the presence of game elements. Conducting the study in an online learning environment allowed further a highly unconstrained examination of the effects of game elements on attrition. We found that game elements affected both participant attrition and engagement of participants who completed the learning task. Participants with low self-efficacy were particularly prone to drop out in the non-game condition. Game elements also affected both learning efficacy and efficiency. We further found task attractivity to partially mediate the effect of game elements on learning outcomes. The results suggest that by facilitating engagement via task attractivity game elements can compensate to some extent for the increased cognitive demand that the game elements induce. We finally discuss the importance of considering the interrelations between learner characteristics, game elements, and engagement for interpreting results on learning performance measures.