Using a Narrative-based Gamified Teaching Approach to Improve International Students' Sense of Belonging.

It is well-established that a sense of belonging is important for students' academic success. This is especially true for international students in introductory programming courses. In higher education, students' sense of belonging is closely associated with their interest in the subject and related career. This study explores the use of a narrative-based gamification approach to enhance students' sense of belonging in introductory programming courses. The gamified design was piloted with 32 Chinese students enrolled in a big data analytic course using Python at a British university. Results showed that the narrative-based gamified approach greatly improved students' sense of belonging in terms of peer relationships and related-ness to the subject, and increased their learning motivation, career interest, class engagement, and learning retention.