JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Using serious games for learning in operations management is well established. However, especially for the logistics skills in healthcare operations there is little work on the design of game mechanics in terms of learning engagement and the achievement of desired learning goals.

Objective:

This contribution presents a serious game design representing patient flow characteristics, systemic resource configurations and the roles of the players based upon a real Swedish emergency ward. The game was tested in a set of game-based learning practices in the modalities of a physical board game and an online multiplayer serious game that implemented the same game structure.

Methods:

First, survey scores were collected using Game Experience Questionnaire Core and Social Presence Module to evaluate the experience and acceptance of the proposed design to gamify real processes in emergency care. Second, lag sequential analysis was applied to analyze the impact of the game mechanics on learning behavior transitions. Lastly, regression analysis was used to understand whether learning engagement attributes could potentially serve as significant predicting variables for logistical performance in a simulated learning environment.

Results:

Thirty-six students from courses in engineering and management at KTH Royal Institute of Technology participated in both game-based learning practices during the autumn and spring semesters of 2019 and 2020. For the Core Module, significant differences were found between the scores for Negative affects and Tension referring to the rest of the module. For the Social Presence Module significant differences were found between the scores for the dimension of Psychological Involvement-Negative Feelings referring to the rest of the module. During the process of content generation, the participant has access to circulating management resources, and can edit profiles the main learning behavior transition. The standard regression analysis output yielded a ΔR2 of 0.796(F1(3, 35) = 2725.49, p < 0.01) for the board version and of 0.702(F2(3, 35) = 2635.31, p < 0.01) for the multiplayer online version after the learning engagement attributes.

Conclusions:

The high scores of positive affect and immersion compared to low scores of negative feelings demonstrated the motivating and cognitive involvement impact of the game. The proposed game mechanics have visible effects on significant correlation parameters between the majority of scoring features and changes in learning engagement attributes. Therefore, we conclude that for enhancing learning in logistical aspects of health care, serious games can be used that are steered by well-designed scoring mechanisms.