Gamified Physical Timers: Multiple Baseline Study of the Attention Support Apparatus

This document is a proof-of-concept feasibility study of the Attention Support Apparatus (ASA), a standalone physical Pomodoro timer with an E-ink display that embeds a small set of gamification mechanics such as daily goals, quantified progress, completion rewards, and session logging. The central aim is to test whether the motivational benefits of gamification can be preserved when delivered on a single-purpose device rather than a multi-function smartphone or laptop, which carries distracting notifications and other apps. The author frames the work as design-based research and explicitly states that, with a sample of five senior high school students and no control group, the findings establish feasibility rather than efficacy.

Using a concurrent multiple-baseline single-case design over a 15-day window, the study staggered intervention onsets across participants and collected daily five-point Likert ratings of Task Focus, with Perceived Helpfulness measured during the intervention phase. Four of the five participants showed improved Task Focus relative to their own baselines, with gains ranging from +0.42 to +1.50 points; Participant A, who started lowest, showed the largest change. The fifth participant, who began near the scale ceiling, reported declining focus and perceived the device as constraining, a result the author links to research showing that gamification can backfire when experienced as controlling. Because the intervention bundles the timer and gamification together, the study cannot isolate which component drove the observed changes.

The author acknowledges several limitations, including the small sample, reliance on self-report, the short observation period, and the absence of a control condition. A planned three-arm trial would compare the ASA against a non-gamified physical timer and a gamified phone application, adding objective task-switching and individual-difference measures. The document also discloses that a co-inventor of the underlying Taiwan patent is the author, who holds no assigned rights or commercial interest, and that the study received no formal ethical clearance because participants were adult volunteers.