Gamification in medical sciences education: a scoping review.

Background & objective: Recently, the use of educational games in teach has received the attention of medical education experts. There is a belief that educational games can be used in line with the individual characteristics and diverse learning styles of students. Games in medical education are presented in different forms, including simulation, virtual environments, collaborative and social games, and virtual reality alternative games. A more detailed understanding of the impact of this new method requires more extensive studies. The current research was conducted with the aim to explain the elements affecting the implementation of gamification in medical science education with a scoping review approach.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted in Irandoc, SID, and Magiran, Scopus, Science Direct, PubMed, Eric, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Google Scholar and resources available in the library, theses, research plans between October 2012 and May 2024. Seventy-eight articles met the inclusion criteria. CASP checklists and AMSTAR was used to assess the quality of the articles.

Results: Out of a total of 44,165 primary articles, 47 articles remained in the study for the final synthesis. The effective components in gamification included: educational design, virtual awards and points, scoreboards, learner characteristics, interaction with the learning environment, information context, game mechanics and reinforcements. The strategies used in the implementation of gamification included: use challenge, imagination, curiosity, visualization, game dynamics, role-playing and aesthetic. Effective variables of gamification including: increasing students' participation, increasing learning, increasing motivation, reducing anxiety, improving academic performance, reducing professors' workload, increasing satisfaction, active participation in discussion, attractiveness of education, social skills, role playing, self-efficacy, knowledge, skill. The elements of gamification are: goals, rules, feedback, challenge, valuable results, scoreboard and medals.

Conclusions: Today, using the existing potential of gamification in medical education curriculum as an effective approach plays a significant role in improving the teaching-learning process of students in this field.