Gamifying environmental education: A case study in Professional English for Tourism at Yerevan State University

This paper explores the impact of gamification on student engagement, learning outcomes, and environmental awareness in a higher education context. The research was conducted at Yerevan State University involving 40 junior students majoring in English for Tourism. Two focus groups (experimental and control) were formed to carry out the case study. The experimental group was engaged in gamified learning activities incorporating environmental education content, while the control group received traditional instruction. This study employed a quasi-experimental model with a mixed methodology approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools to investigate the effects of gamification on student motivation, engagement, and learning outcomes within the domain of environmental education applied to tourism-related subjects. In contrast to the traditional group, the students from the gamified group demonstrated high levels of engagement both in terms of enjoyment, retention of environmental concepts, and disposition toward the subjects. Moreover, they showed significant improvement in practical translation tasks, especially those involving intercultural communication and real-world tourism scenarios enriched with environmental themes. The findings highlight the educational standpoint of gamification that stimulates both language learning and environmental literacy in professional higher education programs.