Reasons to Engage in and Learning Experiences From Different Play Strategies in a Web-Based Serious Game on Delirium for Medical Students: Mixed Methods Design

Abstract

Background Although many studies have recently been published on the value of serious games for medical education, little attention has been given to the role of dark play (choosing unacceptable actions in games). Objective This study aimed to investigate potential differences in the characteristics of medical students who have the opportunity to choose normal or dark play in a serious game. This study also aimed to compare their reasons for choosing a play strategy and their perceptions of what they learned from their game play. Methods We asked undergraduate medical students to play a serious game in which they had to take care of a patient with delirium (The Delirium Experience). After getting acquainted with the game, students could opt for normal or dark play. Student characteristics (age, gender, experience with caring for older or delirious patients, and number of completed clerkships) were collected, and the Delirium Attitude Scale and Learning Motivation and Engagement Questionnaire were administered. Reasons for choosing normal or dark play were evaluated with an open-ended question. Information on lessons they had learned from the game was collected using an open-ended question and self-reported knowledge on delirium. Results This study had 160 participants (89 normal play, 71 dark play). Male students (26/160, 56.5%) chose dark play significantly more often than female students (45/160, 39.5%; P=.049). We did not find significant differences in student characteristics or measurement outcomes between play strategies. Participants’ main reason for choosing normal play was to learn how to provide care to delirious patients, and the main reason for dark play was to gain insight into what a delirious patient has to endure during delirious episodes. All participants learned what to do when taking care of a delirious patient and gained insight into how a patient experiences delirium. We found no differences in self-reported knowledge. Conclusions When medical students have the opportunity to choose dark play in a serious game, half of them will probably choose this play strategy. Male students will more likely opt for dark play than female students. Choice of play strategy is not affected by any other student characteristic or measurement outcome. All students learned the same lessons from playing the game, irrespective of their learning strategy.

Beyond Play: Conceptualising the Capability of a Good Digital Game to Stimulate Interest in STEM

“…It is impossible to neglect to include content in digital games. All studies on educational digital game design emphasise the need for learning content for all ranges of user including children (Balli, 2018;Herodotou, 2018;Kiili & Ketamo, 2017;Lowrie, 2015; van den Heuvelhttp://ijlter.org/index.php/ijlter Panhuizen et al, 2013), teenagers (Lester et al, 2014;Marcelo Leandro et al, 2018;Mohd Jamel et al, 2019;Pedersen et al, 2016;Raffety et al, 2016), adults (Brown et al, 2018;Buijs-Spanjers et al, 2020;Gaspar et al, 2020;Kuk et al, 2012;Ross et al, 2014;Vecchia et al, 2015), and the elderly (Cota et al, 2015). In the STEM digital game context, we define STEM learning content as the scientific topic, themes, beliefs, concepts, and facts related to STEM that are often grouped within each subject or learning as part of the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that are expected to be learned in the digital game.…”

“…Some have stated that the results from the pre-and post-tests indicate that there is an improvement in the level of STEM conceptual understanding. This result has mostly been tested among teen and adult populations (Brown et al, 2018;Buijs-Spanjers et al, 2020;Gaspar et al, 2020;Vecchia et al, 2015). For people that have a well-developed level of brain function, their learning and conceptual understanding will improve a lot.…”

Serious Games in Higher Education in the Transforming Process to Education 4.0—Systematized Review

“…The majority of the games are realized as a desktop computer game (n = 7) or online or web app (n = 9). Apart from games outside a specific subject area, desktop games are mostly used in the field of medicine [27,40,41,43], while online/web app games are often used in computer science [29,30,[33][34][35]. Two games describe a setup where teams work with computers but the game takes place in presence [24,45,46].…”

“…The work aims to provide feedback based on the emotional state. The other games in this area have the purpose of motivating or engaging students [32,33,41,43,45,48], or increasing the learning effect [29,30,33,35,[37][38][39][40][46][47][48].…”

Smart City Serious Game Based on Features Selection

“…This kind of game emphasized a specific purpose such as education, scientific exploration, city management, etc. [8][9][10]. The smart city serious game aims to simulate the implementation of the smart city based on features.…”