Taking the pulse of a classroom with a gamified audience response system

{Background and objective: This paper presents an empirical study of a gamified mobile-based assessment approach that can be used to engage students and improve their educational performance. Method: A gamified audience response system called G-SIDRA was employed. Three gamification elements were used to motivate students in classroom activities: badges for achievements to increase engagement, points to indicate progression and performance in the subject and ranking for promoting competitiveness. A total of 90 medical students in a General and Descriptive Anatomy of the Locomotor System course were taught using G-SIDRA in the academic year 2019/2020. Smart bracelets were configured to collect heart rate measurements from 30 students with the aim of evaluating the impact of the gamification elements. The control group consisted of a sample of 110 students enrolled on the same course in the academic year 2016/2017 using non-gamified SIDRA. Results: Statistically significant differences were found between multiple choice questions (MCQ) scores obtained by using SIDRA and G-SIDRA in the four experiments (U = 1.621,50, p