Live quiz games to teach nutrition in a dental hygiene program: a pilot study.

Abstract

Introduction: Higher educational institutions increasingly focus on incorporating games to enhance student engagement. Gimkit is a recent addition to gamified learning that allows instructors to create quiz games with randomly repeated questions.

Case description: The study of nutrition requires memorization of facts. Gimkit was incorporated into a dental hygiene class to teach nutrition and support rote learning. Anonymous data on student performance and satisfaction were collected. Descriptive statistics were applied to summarize the survey results; the difficulty and discrimination indices were analyzed to evaluate students' academic performance.

Results: Ten percent of the class participated in the voluntary survey; academic performance was analyzed for the whole class. The study identified Gimkit as a potential learning tool, especially for content areas that require memorization and learning of facts.

Conclusion: Data show a positive impact of in-class gaming on knowledge acquisition and retention.