LAUSR

BACKGROUND With the development of evidence-based nursing practice, nursing research courses are important in undergraduate programs. However, nursing research courses are highly theoretical, which is difficult for students to understand. Improving the teaching quality of nursing research courses is a challenge for educators. OBJECTIVES To understand the learning experience and the effect of gamification teaching on nursing undergraduates, and to provide new ideas for nurse educators. DESIGN A qualitative research design using individual semi-structured interviews. SETTINGS Gamification teaching was applied in an undergraduate nursing research course over one semester at a university in Central China. PARTICIPANTS Purposive sampling was adopted to select nine undergraduate nursing students who had recently completed gamification teaching in a nursing research course. METHODS Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological method. RESULTS Three major themes and seven subthemes emerged from the interviewees' experience: (1) positive attitude (e.g., acceptance with pleasure and flow experience); (2) self-perceived competence improvement (e.g., creative thinking, collaboration, and knowledge internalization and application); and (3) challenges of gamification teaching (e.g., learning pressure and rationality of game design). CONCLUSIONS The gamification teaching mode based on the flow theory had a positive effect on the students' learning experience in the nursing research course. It is recommended to improve the game design model and to enhance its effectiveness for classrooms in the future.