Digital Tools for Learning Diabetes: Combination of Animation and Gamification

Overview

COVID-19, a global epidemic that affects the world, has created significant changes in many areas, especially in the health system. One of the most affected areas is nursing education. The content of nursing education focuses on cognitive, psychomotor and affective areas. In order for nursing education to be successful, important initiatives should be provided in the education of these areas. However, difficulties were encountered in the distance education process. This study was conducted to evaluate the delivery of diabetes education in nursing with animation and gamification.

This study was conducted with a randomized-controlled experimental design. This study was conducted between October and November 2020 in the Department of Nursing at the Faculty of Health Sciences in Turkey. The inclusion criteria were as follows: being 18 years old or over, studying in the second year, volunteering to take a diabetes course, not attending any course for diabetes before, have a remote access tool (internet connection, personel comuter eg.), not to be absent on the date when the data of the research will be collected. The second-year nursing students were selected for the study since participants have not taken diabetes nursing courses before. In the randomization part of the study, the students were assigned to the experiment (n=35) and control (n=35) groups according to their number in the class list using the random numbers table. Data were callacted with "Structured Student Identification Form", "Diabete Nursing Knowledge Test", "Instructional Materials Motivation Survey" and " Opinion Form on Diabetes Education Program supported by digital tools". The Diabetes Nursing course is 2 hours per week fow 10 week. After students were assigned to groups with randomization, the application process of the research was explained to the students. The control group was taught with the traditional method and the experimental group was taught with learning activities based on animation and gamification. Direct lecture, question-answer teaching methods were used through Microsoft Power Point presentation to the control group of Diabetes Nursing course. At the end of the lesson, "Diabete Nursing Knowledge Test" and "Instructional Materials Motivation Survey" were used in control group. An animated video was watched at the beginning of each lesson in the experimental group. Later, lecture and question-answer teaching methods were used through Microsoft Power Point presentation. At the end of each lesson, Web 2.0 (Kahoot) application was used to reinforce students' knowledge.At the end of the lesson, "Diabete Nursing Knowledge Test", "Instructional Materials Motivation Survey" and " Opinion Form on Diabetes Education Program supported by digital tools"were used in intervention group.