From Board Games to Box Trainers: Gamified Feedback in Laparoscopy Training for Medical Students

Feedback plays a pivotal role in surgical training. Gamification offers a way to make the feedback process more efficient by automating and expediting feedback delivery, which might otherwise be difficult to provide. Prior data suggest that negative feedback may play a greater role in improving performance on laparoscopic skills tasks, whereas positive feedback may enhance learner satisfaction, confidence, and engagement. Automated immediate feedback systems are a potential gamification tool capable of reinforcing correct behaviors, identifying errors, and fueling motivation for surgical skills practice. By gamifying negative feedback and capitalizing on its immediacy, we investigate whether this approach can lead to changes in practice patterns and enhance learners' motivation to practice. Moreover, this study evaluates the impact of a laparoscopic skills simulator that delivers this automated, immediate, negative-only feedback on medical students' Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery peg transfer task performance.

Forty-eight laparoscopy-naïve medical students were randomly divided into two groups: (A) which trained with a modified 'Operation' board game featuring an auditory buzzer and (B) which used the same trainer with the buzzer disabled. Both groups practiced using laparoscopic Maryland dissectors within the box trainer apparatus, with solely the training board features differing. We tracked the total practice time each participant spent with their assigned simulator and measured preintervention and postintervention performance on the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery peg transfer task (McGill Inanimate System for Training and Evaluation of Laparoscopic Skills metrics).

Fifty-two percent (52%; 25 of 48) of participants used the practice trainer at least once. Both groups practiced the same number of times, but during sessions group B practiced for significantly longer than group A (P = 0.03). Neither the amount of time practiced (B = -0.17, P = 0.44) nor the study group (B = 0.19, P = 0.40) was significantly associated with a greater improvement in performance.

The 'Operation' trainer's automated negative-only feedback delivery mechanism discouraged laparoscopic skills practice among novices. While the 'Operation' trainer's automated negative-only feedback delivery mechanism decreased novice learners' practice duration at any given session, it did not appear to impact motivation to practice again. Future studies should evaluate the roles of mixed, immediate feedback delivery models and appropriately calibrating task difficulty to achieve desirable difficulty in cultivating practice habits.