Gamification as a strategy to improve academic performance in language and literature in basic education
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Given gaps in reading comprehension and written production in basic education, this article examines gamification as a strategy for improving performance in language and literature and identifying conditions for success. An exploratory literature review was conducted using a predefined protocol, searches in indexed academic sources, selection by titles, abstracts, and full texts, standardized extraction, quality assessment, and thematic synthesis of studies published between 2010 and January 2026 in Spanish and English. The results show small but recurring improvements in comprehension and writing when the mechanics are aligned with curricular objectives, graded missions, explicit criteria, and immediate and informative feedback, and also tend to increase grades by favoring rapid cycles of practice and review. Effectiveness depends on clear goals, moderate cooperation, purposeful narrative, and progress visualization, while points and badges disconnected from the curriculum can have no or adverse effects on motivation and performance. It is concluded that gamification is feasible and generally has a modest impact, but it requires didactic consistency, teacher training, and rigorous evaluation, and studies with comparable measures, longer duration, follow-up, and evidence in Spanish-speaking contexts are needed.
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