EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GAMIFIED MOBILE APPLICATIONS ON VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND LONG-TERM RETENTION IN PRIMARY SCHOOL ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

This study investigates the pedagogical effectiveness of gamified mobile applications on English vocabulary acquisition and long-term lexical retention among primary school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Utilizing a quantitative quasi-experimental design, 60 young learners aged 9–10 years were divided into an experimental group ($n = 30$) using a gamified application featuring spaced repetition, badges, and leaderboards, and a control group ($n = 30$) receiving traditional drill-based paper vocabulary instruction over a six-week intervention period. Data collection involved a baseline pre-test, an immediate post-test to measure initial acquisition, and a delayed post-test administered four weeks post-intervention to quantify long-term memory retention. Statistically robust analyses demonstrated that while both modalities facilitated short-term lexical growth, the experimental group achieved significantly higher immediate post-test scores and maintained a resilient vocabulary retention index with a negligible decay rate compared to the control group. The findings validate the integration of structural gamification dynamics as an empirical solution to mitigate the rapid decay characterized by traditional rote-memorization models in primary language education contexts.