Mechanism of gamification: Role of flow in the behavioral and emotional pathways of engagement in management education

Gamification of learning is the integration of game design elements into the learning context. Decade-long research has revealed evidence on the ability of gamification to increase the engagement levels of users. Research attributes this enhanced user engagement to the unique experience offered by gamification. However, the literature is still unclear about this experience, its pathways, and the underlying mechanism. Hence, the present study examines the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional pathways of learning engagement in a gamified management course through a within-subject experiment. The results indicate that both behavioral and emotional engagement is significantly higher during the gamified sessions. In contrast, no significant change was found in learners' cognitive engagement. Moreover, flow was found to mediate the relationship between gamification and engagement when examined using the multi-categorical mediation analysis. The study brings clarity to the mechanism of gamification based on the foundations of goal setting theory and stimulus organism response (SOR) theory. It also assists practitioners by providing insights into the ‘experience to target for’ while designing gamification in a learning setting.