A novel, interactive game to improve understanding of respiratory control pathways in first-year medical students

Abstract

The physiology of respiration is a challenging subject for many medical students. To assist students, we have developed an active learning game that physically places students within a model outlining the respiratory control pathway. Participants were provided with a vodcast describing the physiology of respiratory control and instructed to view this prior to the activity. Once in the classroom, groups of students sat at tables marked to represent components of the respiratory control pathway (e.g. apneustic center, diaphragm etc.). Tables were connected with green and red ropes indicating excitatory or inhibitory effects, respectively. Students were presented with various scenarios (e.g. diabetic ketoacidosis) and asked to predict and illustrate the scenario's effect on subsequent steps in the respiratory pathway by waving the appropriate connecting rope. The next table would continue the pattern in order to simulate the collective physiological adaptation of the respiratory pathway. 30 first-year medical students participated in this study. Following the activity, 25 out of the 30 participants completed an optional survey. The survey aimed to assess the benefits of adding this activity to our first-year medical curriculum in order to build a foundational understanding of the physiology of respiration. Responses were overwhelmingly favorable, and participants reported that playing the game significantly improved their perceived understanding of the physiology of respiratory control. All but one of the participants recommended using the activity in future classes. Because the small size of the study group may limit generalizability, future larger scale studies are planned.

Serious Games as a Method for Enhancing Learning Engagement: Student Perception on Online Higher Education During COVID-19

“…The use of this method has produced positive results in the COVID-19 context ( Nieto-Escamez and Roldán-Tapia, 2021 ; Rincon-Flores and Santos-Guevara, 2021 ). Moreover, gamification has been used in different subjects, such as business ( Pakinee and Puritat, 2021 ), computer sciences ( Liénardy and Donnet, 2020 ), and chemistry learning ( da Silva Júnior et al, 2020a , b ), as well as biological sciences courses, such as biology ( Kalleny, 2020 ; Lobet et al, 2021 ), microbiology ( Dustman et al, 2021 ), physiology ( Moro et al, 2020 ; Hennekes et al, 2021 ; Herkes et al, 2021 ; Kane et al, 2022 ), and medical and nursing education ( Gentry et al, 2019 ; Malicki et al, 2020 ; O’Connell et al, 2020 ; van Gaalen et al, 2021 ).…”

Contribuição de jogo educacional associado a avaliações formativas para o aprendizado de fisiologia cardíaca, no ensino presencial e remoto

“…A atividade envolve atenção, análise visual, argumentação e criatividade, de modo que os alunos construam juntos o seu conhecimento, favorecendo a aprendizagem significativa . Por meio das interações interpessoais, os jogos educacionais também possibilitam o desenvolvimento de técnicas interpessoais, e desenvolvimento de senso de comunidade entre os estudantes (Kane et al, 2022).…”