Gutierrez-Barreto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0., which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction: Serious Games (SG) are an educational strategy used in the health professions with positive results in teaching diagnosis and facilitating the application of concepts and knowledge transfer. A type of SG is the branching scenario, which has the potential for a linear story or multiple options to achieve learning goals. There must be evidence for this type of SG's instructional design (InD) and usability. Objective: Propose an InD for the branching scenario and rate its usability. Materials and methods: We conducted a two-phase study. In the first phase, we drafted an InD based on the literature review, and then, we applied an expert validation process through a modified Delphi technique. With the consent of InD, we built five branching scenarios. In the second phase, we apply an instrument to measure the SG usability of the branching scenarios in a cross-sectional study with 216 undergraduate medical students. Results: A proposal for an InD for branching scenarios was elaborated. This InD has five dimensions with steps and definitions that help the designer fulfill the requirements for the SG. With the InD, we developed five branching scenarios for undergraduate medical students. Finally, the rates for the usability of the branchings had high scores. The branching SG with multiple options offers different outcomes for the same clinical problem in a single activity. Discussion: The proposal of a specific InD for branching scenarios considered SG theory and was tested, at least in user usability. The steps proposed include the specificity of the requirements of an SG, such as levels, checkpoints, avatars, and gameplay characteristics, among others, in contrast to the other InD that do not explicitly consider them. One of the limitations of this study is that we applied it only using the H5P software to develop branching scenarios with no other evidence of the performance of the InD in different contexts or platforms. Conclusions: We propose using an InD to construct branching scenarios. This kind of SG has specific characteristics for its correct operation. Using structured steps in developing SG improves the probability of developing decision-making skills. Using an instrument to assess the usability of at least one dimension of the SG is also recommended to identify opportunity areas.

IntroductionVirtual debriefing is a cardinal element to achieve the effectiveness of telesimulation. There are different instruments to assess face-to-face debriefing to determine the degree of effectiveness of debriefing; Debriefing Assessment for Simulation in Healthcare (DASH) instrument is one of them. This study aims to describe and compare the evaluation of raters, instructors, and students during a virtual debriefing using the DASH.MethodsA cross-sectional study was performed evaluating the virtual debriefing of 30 instructors after a heart failure telesimulation scenario. The evaluation was conducted by 30 instructors, 338 undergraduate students in the seventh semester, and 7 simulation raters. The 3 versions of the DASH instrument in Spanish were applied, respectively.ResultsTwo comparisons were made, student versus instructor and rater versus instructor. Cronbach α was 0.97 for each version. The averages of the results on the DASH instrument were: 6.61 (3.34–7.0), 5.95 (4.65–7.0), and 4.84 (2.68–6.02) for student, rater, and instructor versions, respectively. The size effect between student and debriefer perspectives was 0.42. In contrast, the size effect between instructor and rater was 0.72. All differences were significant.ConclusionsThere are different rates between the persons who use the DASH. In this study, from the perspective of the instructor and rater, the difference was 1 point with a wide range, in contrast with the difference between instructor and student, which is relatively minor. It is necessary to consider the perspectives of experts in the subject to achieve a virtual debriefing of high quality and improve a debriefing by using the DASH.

No abstract