Virtual Patients in a Behavioral Medicine Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Participants’ Perceptions

Abstract

ObjectiveThe purpose of this article is to explore learners’ perceptions of using virtual patients in a behavioral medicine Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) and thereby describe innovative ways of disseminating knowledge in health-related areas.MethodsA 5-week MOOC on behavioral medicine was hosted on the edX platform. The authors developed two branched virtual patients consisting of video recordings of a live standardized patient, with multiple clinical decision points and narration unfolding depending on learners’ choices. Students interacted with the virtual patients to treat stress and sleep problems. Answers to the exit survey and participant comments from the discussion forum were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.ResultsIn total, 19,236 participants enrolled in the MOOC, out of which 740 received the final certificate. The virtual patients were completed by 2317 and 1640 participants respectively. Among survey respondents (n = 442), 83.1% agreed that the virtual patient exercise was helpful. The qualitative analysis resulted in themes covering what it was like to work with the virtual patient, with subthemes on learner-centered education, emotions/eustress, game comparisons, what the participants learned, what surprised them, how confident participants felt about applying interventions in practice, suggestions for improvement, and previous experiences of virtual patients.ConclusionsStudents were enthusiastic about interacting with the virtual patients as a means to apply new knowledge about behavioral medicine interventions. The most common suggestion was to incorporate more interactive cases with various levels of complexity. Further research should include patient outcomes and focus on interprofessional aspects of learning with virtual patients in a MOOC.

MOOC Learners’ Engagement with Two Variants of Virtual Patients: A Randomised Trial

“…This is in line with prior research results, which demonstrate high participants' satisfaction when engaging with VPs in MOOCs [11]. Nineteen percent (19%) of the total participants dropped out from the exercise, of which the bulk of these participants dropped out without starting the VP (76% of dropouts).…”

“…VPs have been previously introduced in MOOCs to increase levels of interactivity of learners with the MOOC content [9,10]. In one study, the results indicated that the VPs were perceived as a helpful exercise in the course by 83.1% of the responding participants (n = 442) [11]. Other positive outcomes of MOOCs using VPs was seen in a Urology MOOC which had a higher overall student completion rate 10.4% compared to the reported 5% average completion in MOOCs [12].…”

“…The openness of MOOCs to different groups of learners makes it interesting to observe how branching will influence learners' engagement in such a digital learning environments. Within a MOOC environment the right choice of feedback, may lead to positive effects on the dropout rates [11,12]. There is, so far, no firm evidence how this design feature may impact student completion of the VP activities and therefore impact the MOOC completion.…”

Twelve tips for integrating massive open online course content into classroom teaching

“…Most medical MOOCs include assessments consisting of automatically graded multiple choice quizzes and exams, automated or peerassessed short open-ended questions, and open question that require a long answer such as a reflection or an essay (Reilly et al 2014). Also, virtual patients and educational games are being used for assessing learners on clinical reasoning skills (Stathakarou et al 2014;Subhi et al 2014;Reinders and de Jong 2016;Berman et al 2017). Formal MOOC assessments usually include a combination of assessment modes, and for the integration into your course it is up to you if the MOOC assessment of your choice counts as a high or low stake assessment.…”

Web-Based Undergraduate Medical Education in a Virtual Learning Environment Using an Original Pedagogical Approach: an Observational Longitudinal Study

“…WBME is gaining increasing acceptance through activities and courses offered by Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). These spaces help minimize problems in the classroom, such as material availability, since it is a form of self-directed and potentially interactive study carried out at different times and places, but focused on the same content and same skills 6,7 .…”