Abstract
BackgroundHuman morphology is a critical component of dental and medical graduate training. Innovations in basic science teaching methods are needed to keep up with an ever-changing landscape of technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students in a medical and dental histology course would have better grades if they used gaming software Kahoot® and whether gamification effects on learning and enjoyment.MethodsIn an effort to both evoke students’ interest and expand their skill retention, an online competition using Kahoot® was implemented for first-year students in 2018 (n = 215) at the University of Eastern Finland. Additionally, closed (160/215) or open-ended (41/215) feedback questions were collected and analyzed.ResultsThe Kahoot® gamification program was successful and resulted in learning gains. The overall participant satisfaction using Kahoot® was high, with students (124/160) indicating that gamification increased their motivation to learn. The gaming approach seemed to enable the students to overcome individual difficulties (139/160) and to set up collaboration (107/160); furthermore, gamification promoted interest (109/160), and the respondents found the immediate feedback from senior professionals to be positive (146/160). In the open-ended survey, the students (23/41) viewed collaborative team- and gamification-based learning positively.ConclusionThis study lends support to the use of gamification in the teaching of histology and may provide a foundation for designing a gamification-integrated curriculum across healthcare disciplines.
Highlights
Human morphology is a critical component of dental and medical graduate training
The team-based outcome was enhanced when the students played the online quiz twice, which had a positive effect on the score ratios (G5 90%; p < 0.05)
Elimination process was used to group the questions according to their consistency, i.e. how closely related a set of questions are as a group
Summary
Human morphology is a critical component of dental and medical graduate training. Innovations in basic science teaching methods are needed to keep up with an ever-changing landscape of technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students in a medical and dental histology course would have better grades if they used gaming software Kahoot® and whether gamification effects on learning and enjoyment. Student-centered learning and a whole-slide imaging platform were introduced. Students studied in self-guided, slide imaging platform-powered. The whole-slide imaging platform-based activities performed by the students were designed to teach histology concepts for each topic of the course. Students followed their syllabus and worked freely. The results of our earlier study assessing the new approach in 2017 indicated mastery of the whole-slide imaging platform and positive student attitudes [8]
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