Mahesh Kumar Usha, Pankaj Ramesh Pande, Pravallika Venkatannagari
BACKGROUND Games designed for serious purposes rather than just entertainment are gaining worldwide attention as they allow players to learn new skills and knowledge, stimulate physical activities, or enhance social-emotional development. These games are widely applied within the educational field to facilitate medical students’ learning through the integration of information in a competitive active environment. It can support higher-level discussions that assist in enhancing medical students’ communication, social collaboration, and critical-thinking skills, all of which are abilities essential to the future doctor. Despite of the advantages of games in the health care field, the evidence of their pedagogical effectiveness is still in question. METHODS All 148 students were taught various topics in pathology by power point presentations during lecture hours. For the whole batch a pre-test was conducted using 50 multiple choice questions. Later on, for tutorials, students were divided into two groups (A and B) of 74 each. Group A (control group) was subjected to the traditional tutorials of having question / answer session and clarifying student doubts. Group B (experimental group) were exposed to “Educational Games” like playing cards, puzzles, etc. At the end of the three topics in pathology (within a span of two months), all the students (both experimental group and control group) were subjected to an examination (post-test) (same paper) having 50 multiple choice questions. Analysis of results was done with the case and control groups and level of significance was calculated. Pre-test and post test results were also analysed. Later on, perception of students was undertaken by giving them a questionnaire regarding the effect of educational games on medical students’ satisfaction, knowledge, attitude and skills. RESULTS Group wise analysis of motivational levels based on post-test score (Experimental Group vs. Control Group) (both topics) was done. The significant t-value in the post tests indicates that the motivational levels of the experiment group are much more than the control group. CONCLUSIONS Game based learning (GBL) scenarios contribute to the improvement of skills, they provide a means for fun in the course, enrich the educational environment, encourages active participation, help structure the knowledge more easily, and contribute to the reinforcement of knowledge gained in the course.
