Physiotherapist Students’ Perceptions in a Gamification Project

Abstract

Motivation is a crucial aspect in the students' learning. Thus, active learning methods encourage students to become active protagonists of their own learning processes. Gamification is the use of game elements in a non-game context. The use of gamification as an innovative teaching-learning strategy rises from the need for change in teaching methodology. By applying gamification to the classroom, students could be motivated to learn in new ways or enjoy otherwise tedious tasks. For that reason, a gamification project entitled ´Jeopardy´, based on a cooperative methodology, has been developed in the first semester of the academic course 2019-2020. The participants have been students of 2º course of Physiotherapy degree from San Jorge University, enrolled in the subject 'General Procedures in Physiotherapy 1'. Jeopardy project consisted in the implementation of educational games that gave students, divided into small groups, tasks to earn points and feature a leaderboard to track progress and increase students' engagement. Our main objective was to analyze the perception of learners about their participation, the impact of the project and, the integration of content from this subject. In order to assess students' perceptions and satisfaction with the gamification project, an online survey was designed to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Results show that students value this project positively in terms of the way in which it facilitates the integration of content in a collaborative way. To conclude, this study provides that the use of a gamification project is a valid active learning strategy.