Educational Games for eHealth : Using Games as a Tool to Teach Disease Precautions

Abstract

This master thesis investigated how an educational game could affect the ability to remember infectious disease precautions, guidelines, and hygiene rules over time in students and young adults in Norway. It also compared the ability to remember and implement these precautions taught in an educational game to the digital course “Training in Protective Measures” at the University of Agder. A high-fidelity digital prototype of an educational game was created for the purpose of this thesis project, with learning materials based on the teachings in the course. Qualitative research methods have been used for the evaluation of the proposed educational game. A control group took in the course “Training in Protective Measures”, while a test group partook in the evaluations of the prototype game twice. The data collected during the evaluations was used to check for indications to any differences in learning outcomes, as well as potential changes in the learning outcomes over time. For an educational game to be useful, it should also meet expectations of players towards games. To evaluate if the developed prototype could provide a learning environment that meets these expectations, it was also investigated how the gaming experience was among the test group. Overall, the evaluations provided valuable results that indicate that the proposed educational game can be a useful tool when educating about infectious disease prevention, while providing a positive gaming experience to the players.