THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GAMIFICATION STRATEGY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS' VOCABULARY MASTERY (AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY AT SMAN 13 BANDA ACEH)

This study explores the effectiveness of using a gamification strategy to improve students' vocabulary mastery in English learning. The research was conducted at SMAN 13 Banda Aceh with 15 tenth-grade students as participants. The method used was a pre-experimental design involving a pre-test, treatment using gamification, and a post-test. The results showed a significant improvement in students' vocabulary scores, with the average increasing from 53.33 in the pre-test to 90.00 in the post-test. The N-Gain score reached 0.8121, which is categorized as high. Statistical analysis using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test revealed a significance value of less than 0.001, indicating that the gamification strategy had a positive and significant effect on students' vocabulary learning. Furthermore, students responded very positively to the learning method, the questionnaire results indicated that 86.7% of students responded with "Excellent" to the use of gamification in the learning process. These findings suggest that gamification not only helps improve vocabulary mastery but also increases students' motivation and engagement in learning.