A systematic review of serious games in medical education: quality of evidence and pedagogical strategy

Gorbanev, Iouri, Sandra Agudelo-Londoño, Rafael A. González, Ariel Cortes, Alexandra Pomares, Vivian Delgadillo, Francisco J. Yepes, and Óscar Muñoz. 2018. “A Systematic Review of Serious Games in Medical Education: Quality of Evidence and Pedagogical Strategy.” Medical Education Online 23 (1): 1. doi:10.1080/10872981.2018.1438718.t

In the article “A systematic review of serious games in medical education: quality of evidence and pedagogical strategy,” the authors describe their study that attempted to determine the strength of evidence towards serious games being a helpful tool for medical education, and the strategy that games meant for this purpose employed. The study found that the evidence supporting the usefulness of games in medical education was moderate. Behaviorism and Cognitivism are the two leading pedagogical strategies in these games, and the games tend to be meant as a supplementary tool to classroom education, not a replacement for it.

However, the attempts to use serious games as part of medical education were spread across many different medical fields, including the emergency room, physiology, surgery, and forensics. Most of the games were meant to be used in a classroom setting. The goals of these games were not all the same. Some aimed to give the students knowledge or perceptions, while others focused on teaching skills.

The articles this study analyzed came from 2011-2015, so the data is already somewhat dated, considering the very rapid advancement of gaming technology and obsolescence of old tech. However, this does leave the door open for stronger evidence of the validity or invalidity of games as a medical education tool today. The information on the pedagogical approach used in these games is not particularly useful for my research, as I am not trying to make a game of my own, but trying to determine whether games in general can be used in this context effectively.