Gamification and Active Learning in Agricultural Engineering: Evaluating the Impact of an Interactive Response System on Academic Performance and Stress Reduction

The transition towards active-learning pedagogies represents an important challenge in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education, particularly in Agricultural Engineering courses characterised by mathematically demanding content and complex engineering problem solving. Although gamification and Student Response Systems (SRSs) have shown promising educational potential, empirical evidence regarding their combined application in Agricultural Engineering remains limited. This quasi-experimental repeated-measures study evaluated an Educational Innovation Project integrating the Wooclap Student Response System with structured gamification activities—including educational escape rooms, forensic engineering simulations, collaborative challenges, and peer discussion—in two undergraduate Agricultural Engineering courses at the University of Almería. Academic performance was assessed through short-term (one week) and medium-term (one month) knowledge-retention tests, while students’ perceptions were explored using repeated questionnaire administrations throughout the intervention. Quantitative analyses included descriptive statistics, assessment of normality, paired-samples Student’s t-tests, 95% confidence intervals, and Cohen’s d effect sizes. The intervention was associated with statistically significant improvements in short-term and medium-term academic performance, with medium to large effect sizes, while students also reported high levels of engagement, perceived knowledge retention, technological usability, and reduced academic stress. These findings suggest that integrating a Student Response System with structured gamification may support active learning and knowledge retention in technically demanding Agricultural Engineering courses. Nevertheless, because of the quasi-experimental repeated-measures design and the absence of a parallel control group, the findings should be interpreted as evidence of an association between the instructional approach and the observed educational outcomes rather than as proof of causal effectiveness. Further controlled studies involving larger and more diverse engineering cohorts are warranted.