Enhancing Biochemistry Education for Medical Students Through Game-Based Learning: Students' Perception and Performance.

Game-based learning (GBL) has emerged as a promising approach to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes in various educational domains. This study aimed to assess the effect of applying GBL to biochemistry teaching on medical students' learning outcomes and performance, and to explore the students' perceptions and satisfaction. This study sought to determine whether embedding GBL in a second-year medical biochemistry module improves students' perceptions, engagement, and academic performance compared with traditional interactive teaching alone. A mixed research design was employed. A retrospective cohort design to assess and compare the results of achievement for the cohort of 2023/2024, which was instructed using GBL together with traditional interactive learning (exposed group), and the cohort of 2022/2023, which adopts traditional interactive pedagogy with the same learning outcomes, instructor, and question difficulty level) (the unexposed group) using the validated Measurement of Actual Knowledge and Engagement (MAKE) tool. Using GBL was positively received by most students. Simplification of biochemistry content (69.8%), led to students expressing interest in demonstrating their understanding (75.5%), engaging with biochemistry concepts (76.4%), and being stimulated to focus on the subject (83.5%). The results point toward the potential of GBL to improve learning outcomes with notable increases in skills and knowledge (70.2%), active participation (69.6%), and the application of concepts (65.5%). Integrating structured GBL activities into biochemistry teaching fostered higher student motivation and engagement and was associated with improved perceived learning and stable examination scores. Further controlled studies are warranted to elucidate causal links and long-term knowledge retention.