Using a Combination of Gamification Approaches to Evaluate the Perceived Engagement of Middle School Students on Phishing Material: A Quantitative Survey Research Study
Ava Rafii
13/08/2026
This research paper investigates the use of three different kinds of gamification elements to measure and compare the perceived engagement level of middle school students in cybersecurity material.
Due to the lack of engagement often felt by students during traditional lecture-based practices, gamification has been making its presence in the education of various disciplines such as cybersecurity. Yet, while current research focuses on one kind of gamification, there lies unanswered questions regarding whether there is a gamification type that is perceived as more engaging for students than another.
In an attempt to answer this question, a presentation on the topic of phishing was created and presented to two middle school classrooms. Following, participants played a Blooket game on the subject of phishing, focusing on three types of gamification: rewards-based, competition-based, and leaderboard-based. These features were blended within a singular activity to determine how participants perceived their engagement within the overall gamified experience.
The findings obtained via participants’ engagement ranking on a scale of 1 to 10 indicated that participants overall had a positive experience with being engaged in the phishing material, yet the failure to reject the null hypothesis indicates that students did not perceive one kind of gamification to be significantly more engaging than the others.