Serious Game for the Nursing Assessment of Home-Dwelling Older Adults: Development and Validation Study

Abstract

Background:The use of simulation by gaming is steadily increasing, and the usefulness for educational purposes is not always clear. Indeed, issues related to game development can affect the player experience and the achievement of learning outcomes. The REACtion project developed a serious game to increase student's knowledge on nursing care in home care settings.Objective: This study aims to explore the game validity as an educational tool. Methods:A multidisciplinary team developed a serious game called "REACtion Game" to improve nursing knowledge and skills in the assessment of frail older adults at home. Grafaal's framework was used to validate the game: 5 experts in home care nursing evaluated content validity, and 30 students assessed construct validity, face validity, concurrent validity (by comparing the game scores to the score of the Nursing Clinical Reasoning Scale-NCRS), game quality, and usability. Students came from two postgraduate nursing courses: Master of Science in Nursing degree and first level continuing education in Family and Community Nursing. Results:The content validity was rated highly by experts. Almost all students had a positive impression of REACtion Game as an attractive and useful method to learn new knowledge. Regarding face validity, participants agreed on the realism of the cases, scenarios, and dialogues. No association was found between REACtion Game scores and NCRS scores. Finally, students had a highly positive attitude towards the quality of the game and a less positive one towards its usability. No statistical difference was observed between students' groups regarding dimensions of validity.Conclusions: Although it is not possible to use the current version of REACtion Game for the assessment of nursing students, it is a tool well perceived by participants for its innovative aspect. Therefore, REACtion Game could be used in nursing education as an aid in the process of learning.