A Meta-Synthesis on Gamification in High School Chemistry Education

Gamification, the integration of game design elements into non-game settings, has emerged as an innovative approach to enhance student engagement and learning in education. The influence of gamification on high school chemistry education was meta-synthesized from the 12 selected studies published between 2023 and 2025. Using the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram, the selected studies were screened from Google Scholar and Scopus databases. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist was utilized to finally screen the 12 studies. The transformative impact of gamification on students’ learning and engagement was identified as the meta-theme that emerged from the thematic analysis. Consequently, three themes emerged, namely, opportunities in utilizing gamification in teaching chemistry, challenges in implementing gamification in teaching chemistry, and strategies for effective implementation of gamification in teaching chemistry. Nine sub-themes were extracted from the overarching themes, as follows: elevated student motivation and enjoyment, enhanced learning and knowledge retention, development of the 21st century skills, teacher-related constraints, student-related difficulties, infrastructure and resource limitations, content-driven and aligned with the curriculum, storytelling and feedbacking, and integrating technology with the aid of emerging tools. These findings underscore the potential of gamification as a powerful pedagogical tool in high school chemistry education. It is recommended that targeted teacher training and the development of advanced digital infrastructure be provided to support the long-term sustainability of game-based environments.