Kahoot: A Promising Tool for Formative Assessment in Medical Education

Abstract

The main purpose of formative assessment is to improve students' learning and it 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. This paper investigated the perception of students towards Kahoot as a formative assessment tool in undergraduate medical education and its association with gender. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on first year medical students in a Malaysian public medical school. The study employed a survey that consists of 12 items through Kahoot survey platform. Result: A total of 113 subjects participated in this study; majority was female (68.1%) and Malay (58.4%). The students highly perceived Kahoot as fun, effective and better than e-learning platform for feedback as its median score was 4. The rest of items were satisfactorily perceived by the students as indicated by the score of 3 except for simplifying complex subjects that obtained unsatisfactory level. There were significant median score differences between male and female students for motivation and perceived knowledge retention, whereby males scored higher than females (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Kahoot is a promising formative assessment tool that is feasible, practical and makes learning fun and enjoyable. It can be used to motivate students to learn. However, Kahoot was not the best tool to simplify complex subjects as perceived by medical students.