Abstract For higher education, the question of how in‐class activities can be supported in large lectures is of great relevance. This paper suggests a gamified flipped classroom approach to address this challenge. In an experimental study, N = 205 educational science students performed either gamified in‐class activities using a gamified quiz with points and a team leaderboard, or non‐gamified in‐class activities using exercise sheets. In line with the theory of gamified learning, the results show a positive indirect effect of gamification on application‐oriented knowledge that is mediated by learning process performance. Furthermore, based on a self‐determination theory framework, the results show positive effects of gamified in‐class activities on intrinsic motivation and social relatedness, but no significant effect on competence need satisfaction. The study provides insights into a particular casual construct of game design elements (points and team leaderboards) triggering specific mechanisms (immediate task‐level feedback and team competition) affecting a mediator (learning process performance) that in turn affects a learning outcome (application‐oriented knowledge).
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