An essential aspect of students’ education in physical activity and sports is to give them a prominent role in the educational process and help them to build their own learning and develop competencies for their future professional activity in the field. To this end, traditional lectures should be accompanied by additional teaching methodologies that actively motivate student learning, thereby encouraging their curiosity, creativity, and interest. Such methodologies include gamification (i.e., the use of game dynamics or mechanisms in the educational process), cooperative work (i.e., activities in which students work in groups to complete tasks collectively), and game-based learning (i.e., the use of games as tools to support learning, assimilation, or evaluation). Accordingly, a biannual educational innovation project was designed for implementation in the subject of Psychology of Physical Activity and Sports, which is taught in the first year (second semester) of the Degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences. In this subject, students study the behavior of individuals and groups in all sporting contexts, as well as the specific psychosocial factors that condition sports practice and the psychosocial effects that derive from it. This project aims to improve the students’ motivation and help them to develop specific and generic skills related to human behavior in situations of physical and sports activity, using team competition as a gamification strategy. Participants in the project were 45 undergraduate students (n = 32 men and n = 13 women). Initial results revealed that an optimal level of student attendance and participation in the theory classes could be achieved by implementing the proposed activities (a clues and questions game, although the current format differs from the original proposal). The proposed group activities also demonstrated a satisfactory level in the students’ ability to work as a team, and integrate and collaborate actively in achieving common objectives. These results highlight that the use of active and participatory methodologies throughout the course, but especially in the practical part of the subject in a team competition context, is appropriate for the development of the students’ own competencies in this field. The implications of the results for education and the university teaching-learning process, limitations, and future research guidelines are also discussed.

Keywords: Psychology of physical activity and sports, team competition, gamification activities, competencies development.