Gamification is an increasingly common phenomenon in education. It is a technique to facilitate formative assessment and to promote student learning. It has been shown to be more effective than traditional methods. This phenomenological study was conducted to explore the advantages of gamification through the use of the Kahoot! platform for formative assessment in medical education. This study employed a phenomenological design. Five focus groups were conducted with medical students who had participated in several Kahoot! sessions. Thirty-six categories and nine sub-themes emerged from the focus group discussions. They were grouped into three themes: attractive learning tool, learning guidance and source of motivation. The results suggest that Kahoot! sessions motivate students to study, to determine the subject matter that needs to be studied and to be aware of what they have learned. Thus, the platform is a promising tool for formative assessment in medical education.

Introduction: The main purpose of formative assessment is to improve students’ learning. The formative assessment should be seen as a part of the learning process. Game-based learning has become more common in the education and one of the emerging game-based learning platform used in education institutions is Kahoot. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using Kahoot as a formative assessment tool in undergraduate medical education and identifies association between gender and their preference of this platform. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on year 1 medical students in USM School of Medical Sciences. 113 participants took part. The study used survey Kahoot platform. It consists of 12-item questions. Data were collected via Kahoot survey platform. Result: A total of 113 subjects participated in this study. 36 (31.9%) males and 77 (68.1%) females, 66 (58.4%) were Malays and the rest were non-Malay. All the items received at least medium score of 3 except for items 3, 9 and 12 in which these three items received median score of 4. There were significant medium scores difference between male and female students for item 2 and item 6. Conclusion: Kahoot is an innovative way of formative assessment platform. This tool is feasible and practical and it makes learning fun and enjoyable thus motivates the students to learn.

Background: Smartphone plays a vital role in higher education as it serves as a device with multiple functions. Smartphone addiction was reported on the rise among college and university students. The addiction may result in unwanted consequences on their academic performance and psychological health. One factor that consistently relates to psychological distress and smartphone addiction is the neurotic personality trait. This study explored the relationship of smartphone addiction with psychological health and neuroticism among USM medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on medical students in a public medical school. DASS-21, the neuroticism-subscale of USMaP-i and SAS-SV were administered to measure psychological distress, neuroticism, and smartphone addiction of the medical students. Spearman correlation was performed to examine the correlation between smartphone addiction with psychological distress and neuroticism. Simple linear regression was performed to investigate relationship factors of smartphone addiction. Results: A total of 574 medical students participated in this study. The prevalence of smartphone addiction was 40.6%. It was higher among male (49.2%) compared to female (36.6%) medical students. The result showed a fair positive correlation between smartphone addiction and psychological health (rdepression = 0.277, p-value < 0.001; ranxiety = 0.312, p-value < 0.001; rstress = 0.329, p-value < 0.001). However, there was a poor positive correlation between smartphone addiction and neuroticism (r = 0.173, p-value < 0.001). The simple linear regression showed a significant increase in the levels of depression, anxiety, stress and neuroticism upon one unit increase in smartphone addiction (bdepression = 0.101, p-value < 0.001; banxiety = 0.120, p-value < 0.001; bstress = 0.132, p-value < 0.001; bneuroticism = 0.404, p-value < 0.05). These results indicated significant relationships between smartphone addiction, psychological health and neuroticism. Conclusion: This study suggested a high prevalence of smartphone addiction among medical students, particularly in male medical students. The smartphone addiction might lead to psychological problems and the most vulnerable group is the medical student with the neurotic personality trait.

Lecturers are expected to teach effectively and evaluating their teaching effectiveness are essential to ensure students get the best learning experience. A systematic evaluation of teaching behaviours with a proper feedback mechanism will help to improve their teaching effectiveness. Improvement of teaching effectiveness will result in better students’ learning experience, and thus attaining the intended educational outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate teaching effectiveness among lecturers by assessing their teaching behaviours during lectures. A cross-sectional study was conducted on lecturers in a Malaysian public medical school. Their teaching behaviours were rated by 30 trained pre-clinical medical students using Teacher Behaviour Inventory (TBI) on seven aspects – organisation, speechpacing, clarity, enthusiasm, interaction, rapport, and disclosure. A total of 55 lecturers were rated by the medical students. The organisation and speech-pacing aspects were highly rated as the mean scores were 4.02 and 4.15, respectively. The clarity, enthusiasm, interaction, and rapport aspects attained satisfactory level as the mean scores ranged from 3.10 to 3.59. The disclosure aspect was poorly rated as the mean score was 2.20. Eventhough all lecturers in this school are considered expert in their area, findings from this study suggest that some teaching behaviour need some improvement. Findings from this study also provide useful data for the medical school to chart direction of faculty development activities to improve their lecturers’ teaching effectiveness during lectures.