Exploring the Impact of Gender Stereotypes on Motivation, Flow State, and Learning Performance in a Gamified Tutoring System

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for online education has intensified, evidencing the need for educational technologies such as tutoring systems based on artificial intelligence to support student learning. As a strategy for improving educational technologies, gamification can enhance learning effectiveness by engaging students in enjoyable learning tasks. However, existing literature emphasizes the importance of tailoring gamification elements, considering factors such as the student’s gender. Neglecting such factors may lead to adverse effects stemming from stereotypes and diminishing the learning experience. Thus, we conducted a \(2\times 3\) factorial experimental study with 122 students focusing on a gamified intelligent tutoring system for teaching logic in Brazilian higher education. Our findings revealed that gender stereotypes significantly motivated men to reject and counteract these stereotypes when perceived as a threat. In a gamified intelligent tutoring system with female stereotypes, males were motivated to alter their positions in the rankings, underscoring the impact of stereotype threat on their perception of relevance. Our results also evidenced that gamification did not impact the flow state of students and, across all scenarios, the learning performance of males consistently exceeded that of females.