Deniz HA, Polat Balkan E, İncebeyaz B, Kamburoğlu K. Effect of gamification applications on success of dentistry students. World J Methodol 2025; 15(1): 97374 [DOI: 10.5662/wjm.v15.i1.97374]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Kıvanç Kamburoğlu, DDS, MSc, PhD, Professor, Department of Dentomaxillofacial Radiology, Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry, Mevlana Bulvarı 19/1, Ankara 06500, Türkiye. dtkivo@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Hatice Ahsen Deniz, Elif Polat Balkan, Burak İncebeyaz, Kıvanç Kamburoğlu, Department of Dentomaxillofacial Radiology, Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry, Ankara 06500, Türkiye
Author contributions: All authors contributed to the study conception and design; Deniz HA, Polat Balkan E, İncebeyaz B, and Kamburoğlu K prepared the project and wrote the manuscript; Deniz HA, Polat Balkan E, and İncebeyaz B collected the data; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: In the present study, the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki were followed and approval was obtained from the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry with Ethical Committee (No. 36290600/01 and Decision No. 13/5 dated November 20, 2019). Students were assured that their performance in the gamification applications would not be exchanged for grades, thus avoiding any anxiety that might affect their academic performance.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent from the volunteers was obtained in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: The data of this study are available from the corresponding author in case of reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement- checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kıvanç Kamburoğlu, DDS, MSc, PhD, Professor, Department of Dentomaxillofacial Radiology, Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry, Mevlana Bulvarı 19/1, Ankara 06500, Türkiye. dtkivo@yahoo.com
Received: May 28, 2024 Revised: July 3, 2024 Accepted: August 5, 2024 Published online: March 20, 2025 Processing time: 123 Days and 12.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Gamification, the use of game materials in education, has been used in several scientific fields, and studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in student comprehension.
AIM
To evaluate whether the success of 4th- and 5th-grade dentistry students increases when using the gamification applications Kahoot! and Mentimeter.
METHODS
An experimental design was used to measure the effect of gamification applications on students who were taught using the traditional method. For this purpose, Mentimeter and Kahoot! applications were used in this experimental study. Three groups of 4th- and 5th-grade students were formed: Mentimeter, Kahoot!, and control groups. The effect of gamification applications on achievement was evaluated by administering a post-test to these groups after the instructional process. One-way analysis of variance and t-tests were used for statistical analyses.
RESULTS
A total of 35.5% of the students were in the Mentimeter group, 29.8% in the Kahoot! group, and 34.6% in the control group. Of the total number of students, 54.8% were female and 45.2% were male, while 52.2% were 5th-grade students and 47.8% were 4th-grade students. The overall grade point average was found to be 66.65 (range, 24-100). There was a statistically significant difference in average success scores between students of different groups (P = 0.003 < 0.05) and grades (P = 0.036 < 0.05). The average success score was the highest in the Mentimeter group (71.64) and the lowest in the Kahoot! group (62.15). In the control group, this score was 65.41. The average success score was higher for students in the 5th-grade (68.16) and for female students (68.84).
CONCLUSION
Gamification has a great potential in the education of dentomaxillofacial radiology students. Mentimeter outperformed both the Kahoot! and the traditional method in terms of average student success rates.
Core Tip: Gamification, the use of game materials in education, is used in several scientific fields and studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in student comprehension. Our study aimed to evaluate the impact of two different gamification applications, Mentimeter and Kahoot!, on the success of dentistry students. Gamification has a great potential in the education of dentomaxillofacial radiology students. In addition, the implementation structure has an impact on success.
