JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In times where distance learning is becoming the norm, game-based learning (GBL) is increasingly applied to health professions education. Yet, decisions for if, when, how and for whom GBL should be designed cannot be made on a solid empirical basis. Though the act of play seems to be intertwined with GBL, it is generally ignored in current scientific literature.

Objective:

The objective of our study was to explore students’ perceptions of play in leisure time, and of GBL, as part of a mechanistic, bottom-up approach towards evidence-informed design and implementation of GBL in health professions education.

Methods:

We conducted six focus group discussion in medical and dentistry students, which were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results:

A total of 58 students participated. We identified four major themes based on the students’ perception of play in leisure time and on the combination of play and learning. Our results indicate that while play preferences were highly various in our health profession student cohort, pleasure was the common ground reported for playing. Crucially, play and the serious act of learning seemed paradoxical, indicating that the value and meaning of play is strongly context-dependent for students.

Conclusions:

Four key points can be constructed from our study: (1) Students play for pleasure. Perceptions of pleasure vary considerably among students; (2) Students consider play as inefficient. Inefficiency will only be justified when it increases learning; (3) Play should be balanced with the serious and only be used for difficult or tedious courses; (4) Game-based learning activities should not be made compulsory for students. We provide practical implication and directions for future research. Clinical Trial: Ethical approval was obtained via the Netherlands Association for Medical Education (NVMO, 2019.1.11)