Citation: Denden, M.; Tlili, A.; Abed,
M.; Bozkurt, A.; Huang, R.; Burgos,
D. To Use or Not to Use: Impact of
Personality on the Intention of Using
Gamified Learning Environments.
Electronics 2022, 11, 1907. https://
doi.org/10.3390/electronics11121907
Academic Editors: Juan M. Corchado,
Byung-Gyu Kim, Carlos A. Iglesias,
In Lee, Fuji Ren and Rashid
Mehmood
Received: 7 May 2022
Accepted: 14 June 2022
Published: 18 June 2022
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electronics
Article
To Use or Not to Use: Impact of Personality on the Intention of
Using Gamified Learning Environments
Mouna Denden
1,2,
*, Ahmed Tlili
3
, Mourad Abed
1,2
, Aras Bozkurt
4,5
, Ronghuai Huang
3
and Daniel Burgos
6
1
Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, LAMIH, CNRS, UMR 8201, F-59313 Valenciennes, France;
mourad.abed@uphf.fr
2
INSA Hauts-de-France, F-59313 Valenciennes, France
3
Smart Learning Institute, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; ahmedtlili@ieee.org (A.T.);
huangrh@bnu.edu.cn (R.H.)
4
Distance Education Department, Open Education Faculty, Anadolu University, 26470 Eski¸ sehir, Turkey;
arasbozkurt@gmail.com
5
Department of English Studies, College of Human Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA),
Pretoria 0003, South Africa
6
Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED), Universidad Internacional de La
Rioja (UNIR), 26006 Logroño, Spain; daniel.burgos@unir.net
* Correspondence: mouna.denden91@gmail.com
Abstract: Technology acceptance is essential for technology success. However, individual users
are known to differ in their tendency to adopt and interact with new technologies. Among the
individual differences, personality has been shown to be a predictor of users’ beliefs about technology
acceptance. Gamification, on the other hand, has been shown to be a good solution to improve
students’ motivation and engagement while learning. Despite the growing interest in gamification,
less research attention has been paid to the effect of personality, specifically based on the Five Factor
model (FFM), on gamification acceptance in learning environments. Therefore, this study develops
a model to elucidate how personality traits affect students’ acceptance of gamified learning envi-
ronments and their continuance intention to use these environments. In particular, the Technology
Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to examine the factors affecting students’ intentions to use a
gamified learning environment. To test the research hypotheses, eighty-three students participated in
this study, where structural equation modeling via Partial Least Squares (PLS) was performed. The
obtained results showed that the research model, based on TAM and FFM, provides a comprehensive
understanding of the behaviors related to the acceptance and intention to use gamified learning
environments, as follows: (1) usefulness is the most influential factor toward intention to use the
gamified learning environment; (2) unexpectedly, perceived ease of use has no significant effect on
perceived usefulness and behavioral attitudes toward the gamified learning environment; (3) extraver-
sion affects students’ perceived ease of use of the gamified learning environment; (4) neuroticism
affects students’ perceived usefulness of the gamified learning environment; and, (5) Openness affects
students’ behavioral attitudes toward using the gamified learning environment. This study can
contribute to the Human–Computer Interaction field by providing researchers and practitioners
with insights into how to motivate different students’ personality characteristics to continue using
gamified learning environments for each personality trait.
Keywords: educational technology; technology acceptance; gamification; personality; learning
1. Introduction
Gamification is the use of game design elements, such as points, badges, and leader-
boards, in a non-gaming context to improve user engagement and motivation [1]. The
idea behind the use of gamification in educational environments is to improve students’
Electronics 2022, 11, 1907. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11121907 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics