DIGITAL GAMING AS A TEACHING AND LEARNING TOOL IN POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION

Dr. Rani Kanthan* and Jenna-Lynn Senger. University of Saskatchewan, City of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 0W8 CANADA.

PURPOSE: For the emerging gaming generation, a weekly self-directed student-learning online digital gaming activity was constructed as part of the first year course design, to meet the course objective of analyzing the acquisition of the ‘new’ vocabulary of the language of pathology.

METHODS: The WORD SCRAMBLE game was designed specifically for this course as an additional educational tool. In this electronic game, letters appear in a scrambled fashion. The aim of the timed games (x5) was to decipher the given word. These words were related to the relevant module of study. Clues to solve the word puzzle included “hint” and “add a letter” options. Upon completion of the game, correct responses were collated to give an overall percentage score of achievement.

RESULTS: Student feedback on the midterm course evaluation questionnaire was favorable. 40% of the students marked “agree”/“strongly agree” when asked if they enjoyed WORD SCRAMBLE and 40% marked these same boxes when asked for the usefulness of WORD SCRAMBLE in building their vocabulary. The first-time score for students ranged from 51.64% (47.75% to 62.4%). This increased to 78.07% (76.14%-82.06%) on their second attempt. An overall percentage improvement of 26.43% (13.52%-34.31%) was seen, with 12.70% (0.9%-29.96%) in males and 23.48% (16.12%-35.04) in females.

CONCLUSION: Digital games can be used as an effective and relevant educational tool. It promotes student engagement amid a relaxed and fun setting in the extended learning environment. Higher level thinking/evaluating games are now being utilized as an additional resource for the teaching/learning environment in this course.