The aim of this study was to investigate and analyze how first-grade high school students experience a positive classroom environment (excitement, competition, connectedness, satisfaction, and aspiration) by applying gamification as a teaching strategy in physics classes. An experimental study was conducted within the teaching topic of conservation of momentum and energy, in which N = 69 students in three classes took part. In the experimental group, one class with n = 23 students engaged in physics lessons, using gamification as a teaching strategy. In contrast, the control group comprised two classes with n = 46 students. The My Class Inventory questionnaire was used for this study. The study’s results revealed statistically significant differences in the perception of the student learning experience between the control and experimental groups. The experimental group rated the student learning experience significantly better than the control group. Gamification as a strategy contributes positively to the student learning experience, fostering collaboration among students when tackling challenging problems. It is essential to highlight that even if we do not entirely depart from traditional teaching methods, simply changing our strategy can lead to significant improvements. In our case, gamification can create a more engaging student learning experience, making students more motivated and involved. Consequently, this shift could result in a better understanding and mastery of physics concepts.

Gamification has been gaining attention in STEM education for its potential to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes. Teachers’ acceptance and effective use of gamification depend on their knowledge and beliefs about its implementation. This study employs a mixed-method design to explore Croatian physics teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about gamification. In the first phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five primary and five secondary school teachers. Insights from these interviews informed the development of an online questionnaire in Google Docs. The final questionnaire consisted of three parts: demographic information (including an open-ended question defining gamification), 16 Likert-type items measuring knowledge and beliefs, and three open-ended questions on key elements, technological tools, and challenges in applying gamification in physics classrooms. In the second phase, quantitative data were collected from 230 primary and secondary school physics teachers, providing a robust sample to examine variations in knowledge and beliefs about gamification. Findings reveal that most teachers possess basic knowledge and hold positive beliefs regarding gamification, although significant differences emerge based on age, teaching experience, and school type. These results underscore the need for tailored professional development programs. The study emphasizes the importance of designing support strategies that accommodate diverse teacher profiles. Keywords: gamification knowledge, mixed-method design, physics teachers, STEM education

This paper reports a classroom intervention in which secondary vocational students used generative artificial intelligence (AI) to discuss and check their reasoning with kinematics graphs. The intervention was conducted within the AI4Physics project and consisted of five 90 min workshops. The activities focused on common difficulties such as confusing graph shape with motion, graph height with slope, and the area under a graph with a visual feature rather than a physical quantity. Students worked with position–time, velocity–time, and acceleration–time graphs and were guided to use AI for explanation, comparison and checking rather than for obtaining final answers. Students completed complementary test of understanding graphs in kinematics-based pre- and post-test item sets. Descriptively, their mean score was 2.91/13 on the pre-test item set and 5.50/13 on the post-test item set. Because the two item sets were not independently validated as equivalent and the study involved only one class, the results are interpreted with caution. The distinctive pedagogical contribution of the paper is a teacher-guided checking routine in which AI-generated explanations, including incorrect ones, become objects for physics reasoning: students are required to test AI claims against axes, units, slopes, areas and graph intervals before accepting or rejecting them.

Energy and momentum are fundamental concepts in secondary-school physics, yet students often continue to experience conceptual difficulties even after formal instruction. This study explored differences in students’ conceptual understanding between gamified and non-gamified instructional conditions. A classroom-based quasi-experimental pre-/post-test design was implemented with 63 students aged 15-16 from three intact first-year gymnasium classes in Croatia. One class received gamified instruction, while two classes received the same curricular content, learning activities, instructional time, teacher guidance, and feedback without the game-design elements. Students’ conceptual understanding was assessed using a Croatian translation of the energy and momentum conceptual survey (EMCS) administered before and after the eight-week instructional unit. Student-level analyses showed a larger mean raw gain in the gamified condition than in the non-gamified condition. A baseline-adjusted analysis using HC3 heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors showed the same general pattern. The gamified condition also demonstrated a higher class-average normalized gain, although both conditions remained within Hake’s (1998) low-gain range. Several EMCS items remained challenging after instruction in both conditions. Because only one intact class received the gamified intervention, instructional condition could not be separated fully from class membership. The findings should therefore be interpreted as context-specific and exploratory rather than as definitive evidence of a causal effect of gamification.