The use of serious gaming to assess drug information skills

Abstract

AbstractIntroductionSerious gaming is an innovative teaching approach that facilitates critical thinking and teamwork in pharmacy education. This strategy has not been reported in the literature for the area of drug information (DI) education.ObjectiveTo assess the DI skills of pharmacy students in a DI course using an escape‐room challenge called “DIcipher” developed by the investigator.MethodsThe challenge featured DI questions pertaining to a patient case. The students worked as a team to solve clues to obtain the DI questions staged in a room. The students were required to use DI resources to search for answers to unlock a box with the treatment. Prechallenge and postchallenge assessments were administered along with Likert surveys to obtain student perception of the challenge.ResultsA total of 21 groups participated in DIcipher in March 2019. The students' mean score was statistically significantly higher on the postchallenge assessment compared with the prechallenge assessment (76.4 ± 19.7 vs 68.1 ± 25.9, [P < .05]). The students' efficiency in answering questions also improved as shown by a decrease in time to respond for each question in the assessments. Only one group answered all of the questions correctly and retrieved the treatment. Based on student perspective, the challenge promoted active learning and assessed knowledge of DI resources.ConclusionThe assessments showed that student learning improved through test scores and the perception survey indicated that DIcipher promoted active learning of DI resources in a novel setting.