A Three-Stage Approach to Designing an Online Gamified Psychological Test: A Case Study of Investment Behavior Test

This study presents a three-stage approach to designing an online gamified psychological test. The approach guides test design across diverse contexts, safeguards item validity, and incorporates gamified features into online test platforms. Specifically, adopting the three-stage approach, this study demonstrates how to develop an online gamified self-assessment platform classifying respondents’ investment behavior. Our evaluation results show that our test items are significantly more interesting than a longstanding instrument of psychological personality traits. Our gamified platform with the items can significantly improve respondents’ intention to complete the test in contrast to the longstanding instrument incorporated into Google Forms. The main contribution of this study lies in its innovative three-stage approach to developing an online gamified psychological test. This approach incorporates the inheritance of theoretical foundations, a divide-and-conquer method, and a focus on sustainable development. As for practical implications, we used the approach to develop a pioneering gamified assessment for financial education.