Tan Jun Wen, Ng Kian Bee, Mogali Sreenivasulu Reddy
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
JMIR Serious Games. 2022 Jan 10;10(1):e33282. doi: 10.2196/33282.
Serious games have the potential to resolve educational problems faced by medical students, such as insufficient rehearsal due to boredom and lack of motivation. However, serious games' relatively novel concepts in science and many genres of games that are common in recreation remain underresearched in the literature. Board games are one such genre that, despite their potential, affordability, and flexibility, are rarely designed for medical students, and little is known about student perceptions of them and their compatibility with rehearsal.
In this cross-sectional study, we sought to elicit, via an exploratory mixed methods approach, student perceptions of a digital serious board game specifically designed for the gamified rehearsal of complex medical subjects, with the chosen topic of anatomy.
A digital serious board game, based on self-determination theory (SDT), was first designed and developed to facilitate the rehearsal of anatomy information. Students were then voluntarily recruited to partake in the intervention and were randomly split into three teams of 2 players per game session, after which they were administered the Flow Short Scale (FSS), which is a 13-item measure where items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("not at all") to 7 ("very much"). Students then participated in a focus group discussion to elicit their perceptions of the game. Findings from the FSS were subject to descriptive analysis, and the focus group discussion was subject to inductive thematic analysis.
A total of 12 undergraduate, second-year medical students from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore participated in the study. FSS results indicated a moderate level of overall flow (mean score 4.94, SD 1.07) via the subdomains of fluency (mean score 4.77, SD 1.13) and absorption (mean score 5.21, SD 1.1). Students perceived the game as fun, enjoyable, engaging, and appropriate as a rehearsal tool that alleviated the monotony of traditional methods of rehearsal.
Our digital board game-based rehearsal tool, when based on SDT, appeared to be suitable for gamified rehearsal in a fun and enjoyable environment due to its facilitation of intrinsic motivation in its players.
严肃游戏有潜力解决医学生面临的教育问题，比如因枯燥和缺乏动力导致的练习不足。然而，严肃游戏在科学领域相对新颖的概念以及许多在娱乐中常见的游戏类型在文献中仍未得到充分研究。棋盘游戏就是这样一种类型，尽管它们具有潜力、价格实惠且灵活，但很少为医学生设计，而且对于学生对它们的看法以及它们与练习的兼容性知之甚少。
在这项横断面研究中，我们试图通过探索性混合方法，了解学生对一款专门为复杂医学主题（以解剖学为选定主题）的游戏化练习设计的数字严肃棋盘游戏的看法。
首先基于自我决定理论（SDT）设计并开发了一款数字严肃棋盘游戏，以促进解剖学信息的练习。然后自愿招募学生参与干预，每个游戏环节将他们随机分成三个每组两名玩家的小组，之后让他们填写心流短量表（FSS），这是一个包含13个条目的量表，条目根据从1（“一点也不”）到7（“非常”）的7点李克特量表进行评分。然后学生参加焦点小组讨论，以了解他们对游戏的看法。FSS的结果进行描述性分析，焦点小组讨论进行归纳主题分析。
新加坡李光前医学院的12名本科二年级医学生参与了该研究。FSS结果表明，通过流畅性（平均得分4.77，标准差1.13）和沉浸感（平均得分5.21，标准差1.1）子领域，总体心流处于中等水平（平均得分4.94，标准差1.07）。学生们认为这款游戏有趣、好玩、引人入胜，并且作为一种排练工具很合适，缓解了传统排练方法的单调乏味。
我们基于数字棋盘游戏的排练工具，当基于自我决定理论时，由于它促进了玩家的内在动机，似乎适合在有趣的环境中进行游戏化排练。
