A Mixed-Methods Pilot Evaluation of Undergraduate Medical Students’ Perceptions of a Gameshow-Style Teaching Intervention: Implications for Continuing Professional Development

Continuing medical education (CME) and continuing professional development (CPD) providers face a persistent challenge in engaging time-pressured clinicians through interactive, low-resource formats. Undergraduate medical education has traditionally relied on didactic teaching, which may not align with the rapid, time-pressured demands of multiple-choice question (MCQ)-based assessment. We report a pilot mixed-methods evaluation of a gameshow-style teaching intervention designed to simulate rapid-fire MCQ-style questioning while promoting engagement and collaboration. A single in-person session (using JeopardyLabs) was delivered to 20 third- and fourth-year medical students, all international students from St George’s University, Grenada, undertaking clinical placements in the United Kingdom. Year groups were mixed within teams to balance existing clinical knowledge; individual year group was not captured in the anonymous questionnaire. Participants completed 5-point Likert-scale items and open-ended questions; quantitative data were analysed descriptively and qualitative data using reflexive thematic analysis. Nineteen participants (95%) found the format more engaging than traditional teaching, and all 20 (100%) reported enhanced collaboration and educational value. Qualitative analysis identified four themes: engagement and sustained attention, collaborative learning, perceived higher-order cognitive processing, and enjoyment and motivation; confidence showed greater variability. As all participants were international students, the session also provided a structured opportunity for peer interaction within this cohort, consistent with literature suggesting international students often have fewer such opportunities. Mapped against Moore’s framework for CME/CPD outcomes, these findings sit at the earliest levels (participation and satisfaction); learning, competence, and performance were not assessed. Given the small, single-institution, undergraduate sample and the absence of a comparison group or objective outcomes, we present this as a hypothesis-generating pilot rather than evidence of CME/CPD effectiveness, and propose a shortened, 30-minute modular adaptation as a testable design principle for time-pressured CME/CPD settings.