DIABESCAPE: An innovative educational project on diabetes

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a gamification-based educational intervention to improve knowledge about diabetes, targeting GCSE-level vocational training students who will work in the field of social/health care.

This was a quasi-experimental study aimed at further education students in Auxiliary Nursing Care and Care of People in a Situation of Dependency at the educational centres in the Autonomous Region of Navarra. After assessing the students' prior knowledge, a random draw was carried out to determine which classes would form part of the control group and which the intervention group. In the traditional programme, a one-and-a-half-hour session was held and in the innovation programme, they had an Escape Room with a brief explanation lasting a total of two hours. In both educational programmes, they completed a pre-test and then a post-test one week after the interventions to assess the degree of knowledge acquisition, in addition to a satisfaction questionnaire. The project ran from October 2019 to February 2020.

302 students took part (162 from the intervention group and 140 from the control group) with a mean age of 18.4 years; 87.4% were female; and 52.7% were studying in vocational training in Care for People in a Situation of Dependency. The post-test knowledge score was 32.70 (SD 10.637) in the control group and 38.07 (SD 11.421) in the intervention group (p = 0.000). Meanwhile the level of satisfaction was 8.19 (SD 1.594) in the control group and 8.60 (SD 1.163) in the intervention group (p = 0.020).

Gamified education enhances knowledge acquisition with respect to the traditional methodology and improves student satisfaction. Further studies are needed to verify the effectiveness of these innovative educational methods in the medium and long term.