262. Health Quest: Promoting Adolescents’ Health Science Career Interests Through Technology-Rich Learning Experiences

Abstract

The purpose of the Health Quest project is to create an intelligent game-based learning environment and associated resources to increase adolescents' knowledge of, interest in and self-efficacy to pursue health science careers. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are among the fastest growing career opportunities, yet women and ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in these fields. As adolescence offers a key window to promote interest in and increase self-efficacy to pursue health research careers and the health professions, Health Quest focuses on an adolescent student population. Health Quest will be pilot tested and used in classrooms across North Carolina and California, and will also be featured in informal learning settings including the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and in after-school programs in San Francisco. To support the project’s first aim of designing and developing a series of Health Quest Career Adventure Game episodes and interactive video interviews to promote students’ interest in health science careers, the project team conducted an extensive review of recent NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) projects awarded over the past three years. The purpose of the review was to identify existing programs and online resources that have been developed to promote students’ interest in health science careers and to identify any unique resources or game-based learning environments that aim to promote self-efficacy or mastery experiences towards building competency and interest in health science career fields. We conducted a review of existing SEPA projects awarded from 2015 to 2018 to identify online resources and game-based learning experiences that have been designed to promote students' interest in health science careers. Projects were reviewed according to content focus, instructional approach and resources provided (e.g., websites, podcasts, videos and online-games). Forty five of the 48 SEPA projects reviewed had websites. Projects focused primarily on the life sciences, such as genomics. A majority of projects involved engaging students in the classroom, including providing opportunities in the lab, and used an experiential and mentor-based approach to provide students with unique hands-on learning opportunities to promote students’ knowledge and interest in STEM fields. Other projects involved teacher development. Game-based learning technologies offer significant potential for increasing students’ interest in health science careers. The results of our review showed that while SEPA programs focus on promoting interests and STEM opportunities by engaging students in hands-on classroom and laboratory-based activities, there is a lack of technology-based resources that can be used to extend outreach to students who would not otherwise have access to these programs. We hypothesize that by leveraging the intrinsic motivation of game-play, participant agency, and personalized learning, we can create engaging learning experiences that enable students to explore and gain confidence in pursuing health science careers.