Gameargumentation:

gamification as a methodological strategy in the development of argumentative texts

Abstract

This study describes the impact of gamification as a teaching methodology on the written argumentation skills of 29 9th-grade students at a municipal school in Maranhão, Brazil. With its primary objective in mind, the research analyzes and describes the textual productions resulting from the intervention stages, as well as the motivation factor, which comprise the corpus. Given that it was based on an intervention in the researcher's own context, the study takes on the character of applied research with an almost experimental bias, employing a qualitative data approach. Theoretical foundations included authors such as Kapp (2012), Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (2005), and Keller (1987). The intervention proposal involved a sequence of gamified activities focused on teaching three types of arguments: authority, exemplification, and comparison. Results indicate that gamification, coupled with the ARCS model (Keller, 1987), effectively sustains students motivated and engaged over extended periods. Analysis of the textual productions reveals that, following gamification, students enhanced their ability to structure and articulate a point of view develop cohesive arguments related to the thesis, and select more relevant information to support their arguments. Consequently, gamification has emerged as a viable methodological approach to increase the meaningfulness of teaching text production, fostering less static and more contextually situated learning experiences for students.