Student-led active learning classrooms: a comparison of role-playing versus gamification

New strategies are needed to gain more students' attention, engagement and interests in the MIS major. This paper, therefore, investigates the applications of two active learning approaches that are role-playing and gamification in an introductory MIS course from 2016 to 2019. The active learning approaches are conducted through student-led group assignments. The effectiveness of role-playing and gamification in terms of students' perceived usefulness, engagement intention, and satisfaction are explored by a quantitative method, using an online questionnaire. This paper provides a comparison between two approaches and the guideline for effectively implementing them in a course from the students' viewpoint. The study shows an example of student-led active learning activities, which reveals the opportunities for IS faculty to easily apply and research further.