A gameful blended-learning experience in nursing: A qualitative focus group study

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Health Professions Education
• Educational Technology

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated rapid shifts to online and blended learning for over 1.5 billion students globally.
• Health-related degree programs, particularly nursing, required innovative teaching strategies to adapt to remote education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate nursing students' perceptions of using game elements within a blended-learning framework.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of gamification in two full nursing subjects.

Main Methods:

• A qualitative study involving 149 undergraduate nursing students.
• Sixteen focus group interviews were conducted using a semi-structured protocol.
• Content analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data from focus groups.

Main Results:

• Four key themes emerged: pandemic teaching transition, game elements for attention and learning, gameful design for team training, and blended vs. face-to-face learning with gamification.
• Students perceived game elements as beneficial for maintaining attention and facilitating learning.
• Gamification supported competency-based team training and offered an alternative to traditional face-to-face instruction.

Conclusions:

• This research provides novel insights into integrating game elements into blended nursing education.
• Gamified blended learning effectively teaches clinical and teamwork skills like creativity, innovation, and communication.
• This strategy helps mitigate online learning fatigue and boosts student engagement in virtual classrooms.