Serious games for learning: A model of driving attributes for the medical domain

06/19/2014

Serious Games is a term for which there isn’t a single definition, although is currently accepted that it refers to games that serve a purpose that goes beyond entertainment. Serious Games have recently gained interest as an instructional tool as they provide powerful and effective learning environments. Nevertheless, there is a lack of consensus on what aspect of games (i.e. game attributes) motivate players and promote specific learning outcomes. This lack of knowledge represents one of the major barriers preventing the adoption of Serious Games in domains such as medical education. Therefore, focusing on this problem, in this thesis I propose an Attribute-Driven Game-Based framework for the medical domain that was the result of conducting several case studies and experimental studies with a medical team in an academic hospital. These case studies investigated which game mechanics are relevant to the medical domain and how game attributes should drive the design of these game mechanics. The results showed that using Serious Games for clinical education was effective both in knowledge gain and knowledge retention of medical students, interns and attending physicians.

Authors in the community:

• 

  C

  Cláudia Sofia Sevivas Ribeiro

  ist146827

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  J

  José Luís Brinquete Borbinha

  ist13085

101462409

Doutoramento em Engenharia Informática e de Computadores

electrical-engineering-electronic-engineering-information-engineering - Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

Keywords

• Serious Games
• Game Design
• Game Attributes
• Game Mechanics
• Clinical Education

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico