Gamified Learning in Higher Vocational Physical Education: A Four-Group Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Vocational college students represent an underserved demographic in physical education (PE) research, often characterized by lower baseline self-efficacy and elevated psychological distress compared to university peers. While gamification is a promising motivational strategy, existing studies have largely neglected vocational settings and rely heavily on pretest-posttest designs, which fail to control for measurement reactivity. Methods: To address these gaps, a Solomon four-group randomized controlled trial was conducted with 200 vocational students (mean age = 19.5 years). Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: gamified PE with pretest, gamified PE without pretest, traditional PE with pretest, or traditional PE without pretest. The 16-week intervention incorporated Self-Determination Theory (SDT) principles (points, leaderboards, leveling) via a custom mobile application. Results: Validation of the Solomon design confirmed no pretest sensitization effects (p > 0.05). The gamified intervention produced large, robust effects on Learning Motivation (d = 0.98) and significantly improved locomotor-based physical fitness, specifically cardiovascular endurance (p = 0.002) and sprint speed (p = 0.002). However, muscular strength (pull-ups/sit-ups) and BMI showed no significant changes (p > 0.05), indicating training specificity. Regarding mental health, perceived stress was significantly reduced (d = 0.59), whereas anxiety and depression scores remained unchanged. Mediation analysis identified competence satisfaction (β = 0.853) as the singular dominant driver of motivation, explaining 43% of the variance, while autonomy played a negligible role. Conclusions: Structured gamification is a highly effective pedagogical strategy for enhancing engagement and cardiorespiratory health in vocational PE. However, the lack of improvement in upper-body strength suggests that future interventions must adopt a "hybrid" design that explicitly gamifies resistance-based mechanics to ensure holistic physical development.