The effect of leaderboard on reading rate of primary school students

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of leaderboard on the reading rate of elementary school students.

The research method is a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the present study includes all second-grade students in Karaj schools, from among whom 120 students of one school (80 for the experimental group and 40 for the control group) were selected as a sample using the available sampling method. and were randomly placed in two experimental groups and one control group. The control group received regular training without the intervention of the leaderboard; The first experimental group received training with an individual leaderboard, and the second experimental group received training with a group leaderboard. The research tool includes a researcher-made checklist made whose face validity was checked by the primary school teachers and its reliability was checked by the agreement between the coders using the intra-class reliability coefficient method and it was confirmed by 100%. At the end, the data of this research were analyzed by using one-variable analysis of covariance using SPSS software.

The findings of the research showed that the difference in the adjusted average of the three groups in the reading rate variable is significant (P<0.01, F=94.85). This finding means that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the average score of the reading rate and after using the leaderboard, the reading rate of the students in the experimental groups has increased compared to the students in the control group. Furthermore, the difference in the mean of the reading rate variable between the two groups under training is not significant (P>0.05). As a result, the effect of two educational interventions, group and individual leaderboard on increasing students’ reading rate is almost at the same level.

Originality/value:

 The results of this research showed that both group and individual leader board educational interventions have a significant effect on increasing the amount of study of students. A good leaderboard supports competence and autonomy, and the connectedness and satisfaction that comes when you feel understood and loved by the people you care about, and a sense of closeness to the people you play with. In addition, another aspect of leaderboard as a gamification element is the collaborative atmosphere. This feature allows students to work collaboratively through pair or group work because all activities can be solved individually or in groups. In addition, this aspect of leaderboard makes students more involved in the class and participate in the class.