The Effectiveness of Wayground as a Gamified Assessment Tool for Mastering Vocabulary at a Junior High School
The present study involved seventh-grade students from classes VII A and VII B at SMP Negeri 02 Abung Surakarta. In this context, vocabulary mastery was emphasized as a core element of English language learning, as it serves as the foundation for the development of key language skills, including reading, writing, and speaking. In this study, Wayground was employed as a gamified assessment tool in class VII A, whereas class VII B received instruction and assessment through conventional methods. The post-test results showed that students in class VII A obtained a higher mean score (89.05) compared to those in class VII B, who achieved a mean of 72.78. To examine the significance of this difference, an independent samples t-test assuming unequal variances (Welch’s t-test) was performed at the 0.05 significance level. The analysis revealed a t-value of 2.84, which was greater than the critical value of 2.06. The p-value (0.008) was lower than the significance level of 0.05, confirming that the difference was statistically significant. Therefore, the null hypothesis (H₀) was rejected, indicating that the use of Wayground as a gamified assessment tool resulted in a statistically significant difference in students’ English vocabulary mastery.