Kahoot! in the classroom: Examining the impact of a game-based student response system on pre-service teachers’ academic achievement and perceptions

ABSTRACTKahoot!, a game-based student response system, is increasingly being incorporated into classrooms to maintain student engagement, improve classroom dynamics, and enhance learning outcomes. However, empirical studies exploring how using Kahoot! affects university students' learning, particularly in China, are scant. This exploratory, one-group, mixed-methods study investigates the effects of Kahoot! usage on pre-service teachers' academic achievement and perceptions within a Modern Educational Technology course in China. The results reveal that integrating Kahoot! into the course appears to positively impact students' test scores. Pre-service teachers maintain positive perceptions of using the tool in terms of its perceived learning effect, expected outcome, entertainment, engagement, and competition. Furthermore, the majority of pre-service teachers would like to use Kahoot! for future learning and teaching. The study underscores the potential of Kahoot! to improve pre-service teachers' learning outcomes, providing implications and recommendations for future practice and research.KEYWORDS: Kahoot!game-based student response systemacademic achievementperceptionspre-service teachers Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Data availability statementThe datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Education Science Planning Project of Zhejiang Province titled "A multimodal online collaborative learning evaluation and intervention study based on learning analytics" (No. 2023SCG021) and the 2023 Teaching and Academic Program of Jing Hengyi College of Education, Hangzhou Normal University.Notes on contributorsYue HuYue Hu is a lecturer in the Department of Educational Technology at Hangzhou Normal University, China, and also holds a position at the Chinese Education Modernization Research Institute of Hangzhou Normal University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Zhejiang University. Her research interests include block-based visual programming, the acceptance of new technologies, and instructional design.