In recent decades, the use of games in the classroom has gathered momentum, and Higher Education (HE) is no exception to this trend. However, free play, which is based on playful activities without specific objectives, differs from Gamification, which involves a meaningful integration of games in non-playful contexts to motivate and improve learning. In that vein, quizzes in the form of digital questionnaires after a didactic unit promote self-evaluation, consolidation of concepts and acquisition of enhanced analytic abilities. More specifically, using quizzes via Audience Response Tools (ART) like Kahoot! can improve students' motivation and academic performance. Although the literature on the use of Kahoot! has grown considerably, no studies have been found targeting the effect of Kahoot! quizzes on university students’ final grades in language-oriented courses. Moreover, little is still known about the impact of collaborative work on the learning affordances of Kahoot!, as opposed to individual work with this ART. The present study will try to fill these gaps by examining the students’ Kahoot! performance and its relationship with their exam marks in a course on Spoken English.

Thirty-eight undergraduate students (ages 17-22; 25 females, 13 males) participated in this study, all enrolled in a first-year Spoken English module. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two grouping conditions, which involved completing Kahoot! quizzes individually (n=16) or in pairs (n=22, 11 pairs). Over eight weeks, learners completed weekly Kahoot! quizzes, which were of two different types: the first four covered pronunciation theory, while the last four focused on colloquial vocabulary. We performed descriptive and inferential statistics of the Kahoot! results, in order to determine the impact of the two independent factors (grouping mode and type of Kahoot!). To further assess learning from Kahoot!, quiz results were correlated with exam scores for pronunciation and vocabulary.

The analysis of the overall scores obtained revealed higher means than in previous studies conducted in HE settings targeting content-oriented courses, which seems to support the effectiveness of Kahoot! in language-oriented courses. As regards the grouping mode, Kahoot! scores were generally more variable when they were completed individually than in pairs. Only in Kahoot! 8—related to vocabulary—was a significant difference observed between the two modes, but it was likely to be the result of lower-than-usual attendance at the end of the term, as no other difference was found in any of the other Kahoot! quizzes. The type of Kahoot!, however, did play a role in Kahoot! performance, as the examination of the results revealed a statistically significant difference between Kahoots devoted to pronunciation and those dealing with idiomatic vocabulary, regardless of the grouping condition. In particular, the descriptive means showed that pronunciation Kahoots entailed greater difficulty. Finally, both pronunciation Kahoots and vocabulary Kahoots were positively correlated with the scores obtained in the final exam, suggesting a relationship between Kahoot! practice and summative assessment.

These findings suggest that HE educators should consider integrating such interactive and collaborative ARTs like Kahoot! into their teaching methodology to maximize student performance and engagement.

Keywords: Kahoot!, Higher Education, learner group size, language-oriented courses.