Gamification, which applies game elements to educational settings, has proven effective in boosting student engagement, fostering collaboration, and improving academic performance. This project aimed to explore how by integrating competition, class-made games, and an inclusive environment through gamification techniques, student performance, engagement, satisfaction, and collaborative learning can improve among Engineering, Bioengineering, and Life Sciences undergraduates.

The work involved structured activities aligned with the modules’ learning outcomes and assessments: a digital escape room, an educational Top Trumps card game, a “Lab Protocol” game, and a digital snakes and ladders game. These activities leveraged multi-sensory learning and inclusive pedagogical approaches grounded in the Interaction and Engagement Theory of Learning.

The Digital Escape Room was designed to assess students' initial knowledge in the field. Students, working in diverse teams, solved puzzles and exam-type questions within an engaging scenario that promotes teamwork, problem-solving, and familiarity with the learning environment. This activity fostered a sense of belonging and prepares students for active engagement throughout the semester.

The Educational Top Trumps card game focused on deepening students' understanding about the topics. Working in small, diverse teams, students created and played with custom cards, fostering critical thinking, discussion, and collaboration, while reinforcing key exam topics in a competitive and collaborative environment.

The Lab Protocol Game is an interactive, collaborative exercise that uses gamification to facilitate students' understanding of -omics (i.e. genomics) and non-omics technologies. Teams of four students work together to solve problems at 10 stations, each presenting a unique research scenario, within a two-minute timeframe. Each scenario represents a point, and the team with the most points wins. Given that this game is time-sensitive, it promotes critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving and creates an immersive learning experience.

The Digital Snakes and Ladders game served as a formative assessment covering the entire unit’s content. This competitive game involved trivial, drawing, and calculations, preparing students for the final exam in an interactive, engaging format that enhances knowledge retention and student satisfaction.

The effectiveness of the implementation of the different techniques was assessed by Institutional Data: Considering unit performance (including attainment differentials) and student engagement; Module Survey: to assess the student satisfaction; and Internal Student Survey: to assess the belonging. As this data cannot be fully directly correlated, we ran an additional survey, based on GAMEX scale, to assess enjoyment, absorption, creative thinking, and learning.

Results revealed that by incorporating competition, class-made games, and an inclusive environment, the students’ performance, engagement, and satisfaction improved significantly.

Keywords: Gamification, digital game-based learning, student engagement, student satisfaction, active and collaborative learning.