Gamifying Assessments in Medical Education: A Novel Approach to Tackling Test Anxiety in Medical Students

Introduction: Test anxiety is a specific type of anxiety that typically occurs during assessments and may compromise students’ academic performance. The use of gamification in assessment has the potential to reduce test anxiety. Aims &Objectives: This study aims to provide an understanding of the potential benefits of gamification as an intervention in formative assessments to reduce test anxiety in medical students. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of gamification on the academic performance and test anxiety scores of medical students during formative assessments. Place and Duration of Study:The study was conducted at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University and Bahria University Medical and Dental College from July to December 2022 Material &Methods: The present mixed-method study used Nist& Diehl Patrick-Henry-Community-College (PHCC) questionnaire to measure test anxiety in 251 medical students of Year 1&2 MBBS after formative MCQ assessments based on the Biochemistry course related to the structure and Metabolism of carbohydrates delivered during their respective modules using gamified and non-gamified online applications in the quantitative phase. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with students based on their test anxiety scores. Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0 was used to analyze the quantitative data, a p-value of ?0.05 was considered significant. Results: Mean anxiety scores of male students in all groups were significantly lower than female students. There was no significant difference in the test anxiety score of students taking assessments through gamified and non-gamified assessment tools. Conclusion: Female students reported significantly higher anxiety scores both in gamified and non-gamified formative assessments. There was no significant difference in the test anxiety scores of students taking assessments through gamified and non-gamified assessment tools. Qualitative analysis revealed a positive effect on the motivation of the learners using gamified assessment tools.