Engaging students in an online environment is frustrating for faculty and a concern of administration. Faculty and students report lower levels of satisfaction and lower engagement in online versus face to face learning. Dropout rates in fully online courses are often two times higher than face to face courses. This research attempted to engage online students by embedding a gamification-based scavenger hunt in an online course. Engagement was measured using a combination of quantitative and qualitative measurements. Although the scavenger hunt didn\u27t significantly engage low performing students, it did motivate and deepen top-performing students\u27 engagement. Interestingly, qualitative-based engagement measures proved more predictive of final grades than quantitative measurements, especially among high-performing students
