Enhancing Nursing Students' Engagement and Critical Thinking in Anatomy and Physiology Through Gamified Teaching: A Non-Equivalent Quasi-Experimental Study.

Background: Gamification may enhance engagement and higher-order learning in health-care profession education, but evidence from undergraduate nursing programs—particularly in the Middle East—is limited. We evaluated whether integrating structured gamified activities into an anatomy and physiology c...

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Publicado en:Nursing Reports Vol. 15; no. 9; pp. 333 - 345
Autores principales: Alturaiki, Sommanah Mohammed, Gaballah, Mastoura Khames, El Arab, Rabie Adel
Formato: clinical trial research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: MDPI Sep2025
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Enhancing Nursing Students' Engagement and Critical Thinking in Anatomy and Physiology Through Gamified Teaching: A Non-Equivalent Quasi-Experimental Study.
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          Alturaiki, Sommanah Mohammed
          Gaballah, Mastoura Khames
          El Arab, Rabie Adel
        affil: Almoosa College of Health Sciences, Al Ahsa 36422, Saudi Arabia
      sug:
        subj:
          Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate
          Students, Nursing, Baccalaureate Saudi Arabia
          Anatomy Education
          Physiology Education
          Critical Thinking Evaluation
          Gamification
          Teaching Methods
          Learning Methods
          Student Knowledge Evaluation
          Outcomes of Education Evaluation
          Age Factors
          Academic Performance
          Human
          Male
          Female
          Adolescence
          Adult
          Middle East
          Nonrandomized Trials
          Nonequivalent Control Group
          Descriptive Statistics
          Quasi-Experimental Studies
          Saudi Arabia
          Clinical Trials
          Confidence Intervals
          Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design
          Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test
          kappa Statistic
          Mann-Whitney U Test
          Pearson's Correlation Coefficient
          Parametric Statistics
          Unpaired T-Tests
          Paired T-Tests
          Data Analysis Software
          Funding Source
          Scales
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: Background: Gamification may enhance engagement and higher-order learning in health-care profession education, but evidence from undergraduate nursing programs—particularly in the Middle East—is limited. We evaluated whether integrating structured gamified activities into an anatomy and physiology course improves class engagement and knowledge-based critical thinking. Methods: In this pragmatic, nonrandomized, section-allocated quasi-experimental study at a single Saudi institution, 121 first-year female nursing students were assigned by existing cohorts to traditional instruction (control; n = 61) or instruction enhanced with gamified elements (intervention; n = 60) groups. The intervention (introduced mid-semester) comprised time-limited competitive quizzing with immediate feedback and aligned puzzle tasks. Outcomes were measured at baseline, mid-semester, and end-semester using a four-item Class Engagement Rubric (CER; scale 1–5) and a 40-item high-cognitive multiple-choice (MCQ) assessment mapped to course objectives. Analyses used paired and independent t-tests with effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals. Results: No attrition occurred. From baseline to end-semester, the intervention group had a mean CER increase of 0.59 points (95% CI, 0.42 to 0.76; p < 0.001)—approximately a 15% relative gain—and a mean MCQ increase of 0.30 points (95% CI, 0.18 to 0.42; p < 0.001), an ~8% relative gain. The control group showed no material change over the same interval. Between-group differences in change favored the intervention across CER items and for the MCQ outcome. Semester grade-point average did not differ significantly between groups (p = 0.055). Conclusions: Embedding a brief, structured gamification package within an undergraduate nursing anatomy and physiology course was associated with measurable improvements in classroom engagement and modest gains in knowledge-based critical thinking, with no detectable effect on overall semester GPA. Given the nonrandomized, single-site design, causal inference is limited. Multi-site randomized trials using validated critical-thinking instruments are warranted to confirm effectiveness and define dose, durability, and generalizability.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        clinical trial
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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