Development and use of puzzle and board games to complement the learning of biochemistry at university

Abstract

Biochemistry is an important area of knowledge for biology-based courses, although constantly the students face difficulties regarding the integral comprehension of issues involving biomolecules and metabolism. This scenario comprises an opportunity to adopt active methodologies such as playful classes. Thereby, this work aims to develop and apply a puzzle and a board game of Questions and Answers about biochemistry. These games were based on biomolecules and metabolism contents and were designed to offer a robust number of interactions possible between players to game and players to players. The games were named Bioquease Biomoléculas and Bioquease Metabolismo. They were applied to two classes of biochemistry (n=29), in which the students filled out survey forms to evaluate the games. The results showed that the questions of the game were related to what was learned in class, the difficulty was coherent with the one from the classes, the dynamics of the games were easy to comprehend, and the knowledge obtained was satisfactory, which comprise good alternatives to complement biochemistry classes.