How to measure gamification experiences in nursing? Adaptation and validation of the Gameful Experience Scale [GAMEX]

There has been an increasing amount of research in the last few years on the use of gamification in nursing. However, there is not yet a suitable measuring instrument that fully captures the emotional qualities that arise with the use of gamification.

To culturally adapt and validate the Gameful Experience Scale used among nursing students as well as understand their game experience.

The study was divided into two phases 1) cross-cultural adaptation and 2) validation of the scale and cross-sectional descriptive study.

Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Almeria, Spain.

226 students studying an undergraduate nursing degree.

In the first phase, a cross-cultural adaptation was carried out using a forward-back translation, with the collaboration of a panel of experts. In the second phase, the corresponding analyses were performed, to measure the reliability and the validity of the instrument.

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test that measures the appropriateness of the sample had a result of 0.875. Bartlett's sphericity test was significant (X²(351) = 3755.142, p < 0.05). A structure of 6 factors was confirmed. The total Chronbach α value was 0.855. In the analysis of the test-retest reliability, a correlation level of 0.89 was obtained (p < 0.05). The participants showed high scores in all the dimensions, except that of absence of negative effects.

The adapted version of the scale showed good results in regards to reliability and validity, which indicates that it is an effective tool to be used to measure the game experience in nursing students' training.