Influence of gamification affordance on young citizens’ motivation and learning performance toward digital civic education

The popularity of digital civic education has gained the attention of educators, policymakers, and public administrators worldwide across the globe. Research scholars have also been focused on understanding how young citizens’ motivation and learning outcomes can be stimulated. Based on gamification affordances and self-determination theory, this study examines how three gamification affordances (i.e. reward affordance, competition affordance, and self-expression affordance) affect young citizens’ intrinsic motivation and learning performance in digital civic education. In addition, the study examines the moderating effect of the modularity of gamified learning activities on the relationship between intrinsic motivation and learning performance. Data for this research were collected from 454 young citizens of a digital civic education platform through an online survey. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the proposed research model. The empirical results indicate that the three gamification affordances exert different degrees of influence on the satisfaction of young citizens’ intrinsic psychological needs, which in turn, facilitates their learning performance. Further, the results indicate that the modularity of gamified learning activities impedes the impact of psychological need satisfaction on learning performance. This study is important in that it helps educators and politicians understand the needs of young citizens through gamified digital civic education modes.