Gamification in scholar Physical Education teaching in the time of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article presents the development of a gamified didactic sequence, derived from research linked to the Doctoral thesis in Teaching at the University of Vale do Taquari (UNIVATES), Lajeado/RS/Brazil. The research is justified by the need for innovative practices for teaching Physical Education at school. It aims to improve the students’ participation in Physical Education classes in high school through a gamified didactic sequence. This didactic sequence was applied during a school quarter (September to December) of the year 2021, with 80 students, from the Technical Course in Mechanics Integrated to High School at the Federal Institute of Minas Gerais in the city of Arcos/MG. All activities were developed in a virtully. The research had an experimental character, of a quanti-qualitative nature. To develop gamification in the teaching of Physical Education, activities were worked with students on various digital platforms: Neapord, Wordwall, Google Forms, Seppo, Google Sheets, Moodle. The data to verify the students' participation rate were collected on the platforms themselves, they were coded and analyzed, adopting a significance level of 5%, that is, a p-value lower than 0.05. We also resorted to Wolcolt (1994) to describe the analysis, observation and interpretation of the gamified didactic sequence. The results showed that with the use of the gamified didactic sequence there was a significant increase in students’ participation in synchronous classes, as well as in the performance of gamified activities developed.