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User Research (Teaching Biostatistics in Dentistry Through Gameplay)
User Research (Teaching Biostatistics in Dentistry Through Gameplay)
(Biostatistics in Dentistry)
CONTENT PAGE
1. GENERAL OVERVIEW
2. STAKEHOLDERS
3. gOALS
4. pRE-KNOWLEDGE AND POST-KNOWLEDGE
5. SERIOUS GAMES
6. SERIOUS GAMES AND PRE/POST-KNOWLEDGE
7. DISCUSSION’S COMMENTS
8. SUGGESTIONS
9. CONCLUSION
10. A PPENDIX
GENERAL OVERVIEW
In this user study, we (Cute Center) are doing ethnographic research for an educational game-based tool that be-
tween the two main stakeholders: Prof Hsu and Current students. This tool is aimed to ease the teaching and learning
of Biostatistics in Faculty of Dentistry, National University of Singapaore. We will also be interviewing Dentistry alumni
to gain more insights into the opportunity space.
Empathy Map
Biostats is
Provides
important testimony
Not a priority
Stepping in
to design a
game-based tool
Stakeholders
Dr Hsu
• Planned minimal mathematical concepts in syllabus
• Quizzes has scenarios and data
• Aim to assess student’s critical thinking
• From teacher’s perspective, one of the top challenges is teaching the concept of probability.
Current Students
• “Don’t understand or care about Biostats”
• Most understanding of Biostatistics comes from self-reading and revolves around basic familiarity with
terminologies and definitions
• Students can grasp new information, but retention is low
• What they hear from alumni confirms their belief that biostatistics is not essential in becoming a success-
ful practictioner
• Need more content and scenarios; lack of exposure to situational application and exercises
- Generation of data -> Running the data -> Analysis of data
- Reading papers
• Improving SPSS skills
- Not knowing what to click on SPSS (would be good if there was a tutorial that students can work
alongside)
• Improving Graphical knowledge
- Do not understand graphs cannot make the judgement as to whether a new treatment is effective
Would like to learn more about how these graphs are formed and how to read these graphs/data.
Scenarios
Graphical knowledge
Terminologies/Definitions
Scenarios
Graphical knowledge
Terminologies/Definitions
Graduated Students
Recognise value to Biostatistics before graduation in:
• Reading Research Papers
- Reading scenarios and analysing limitations
- Assess articles more before graduation, to see if the statistical methods are applied correctly.
• Evidence-based practice
- Evidence based practice vs Dogma | Important to design a learning environment where we can pick
up some skills to think critically instead of just following dogma.
- What does evidence based practice entail: When new trends/products/literature comes out:
Treatment vs Prevention. What is new now that there is a lot more preventative? When do we use
preventative? In this patient’s particular case, is using preventive treatment appropriate?
• Running own research
- What Elim learn for FYP:: Choosing what tests to run for my research project. It is good that we learn
before our final projects, this helps us know how to choose our samples and whether our samples
normally distributed.
- However, had to self-learnt Biostatistics because knowledge was insufficient (not enough informa
tion to ascertain the reasons: Low retention? Low understanding? Inadequate syl labus?)
Cute Center
• Have limited capabilities in understanding in-depth biostatistics content
• Have the technical know-how but resources are dedicated to AR
• Feels that indirect vision does not help in the learning of biostatistics
GOALS
Goal of Biostatistics in Dentistry
Evidence-based
dentistry
Community Health
UROP
(Final Year Project)
From our interviews, we understand that Dr Hsu wants students to be able to apply the knowledge from Biostatistics
into their other modules in school like Community Health and UROP and further on in their clinical career. This Bio-
statistical knowledge can also be broken down into Pre-knowledge, understanding of concepts and Post-knowledge,
spontaneous and intuitive application of the knowledge. (Refer to Appendix I)
Overt goal:
Statistical Literacy
Hidden goal:
Joy
From the interview, we also understand that the overt goal is to achieve Statistical Literacy and the hidden agenda is
Joy. The game also has three criteria:
1) An ability to allow teachers and students to teach and learn Biostatistics with ease.
2) Engagement with students
3) Dental Relevance
(Refer to Appendix I)
PRE-KNOWLEDGE AND POST-KNOWLEDGE
Bloom’s Taxonomy was mentioned in the discussion, however Dr Hsu states that the concept is not clinically sound.
However, we highlighted the levels that were relevant, in respect to the discussion.
Pre-knowledge Post-knowledge
(Acquisition of prior knowledge) (Familiarization and application)
1. Gamified 2. Strategy
3. Simulation
A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment, in this
case, it is also aim to fulfil educational goals. To understand serious games better, we broke down the various types
of serious games currently present in the market. We have also placed them on a market positioning map to evaluate
the level of density content (Low to High Density Content) against their method of game-play (Hands-on to Thinking).
“Hands-on” refers to action-driven gameplay and “Thinking” refers to turn-based cognitive gameplay.
serious games and pre/post knowledge
We categorised the different types of gameplay according to our intepretation of its functionality in educating stu-
dents for Non-Biostatistics, Pre-knowledge and Post-knowledge Biostatistics.
Post knowledge: Games in the high-density - thinking quadrant may be better at accomodating scenario-driven
gameplay, hence familiarization and application of knowledge will be needed.
Pre-knowledge: Games in the low density quadrant are able to engage students in teaching singular concepts in
Biostatistics, hence allowing acqusition of knowledge
Non-biostatistics: Games in the high-density - hands-on quadrant are more appropriate for practical clinical situa-
tions, instead of conceptual subjects like Biostatistics.
discussion’s comments
We collected suggestions from the discussion and match it with the type of gameplay to see if it matches the goal of
the Biostatistics in Dentistry. (Refer to Appendix II for the full suggestions)
“Good if the game can incorporate which data to use, giving you many scenarios and how to
gather those data, to make it more intuitive.”
“...this seems to be the kind of game where you use something that is hands on and might inter-
est dental students and then ask them how biostats can be applied to it. Their interest might be
transferred into understanding the lesson. Monte carlo was seen as a flip coin sort of thing. They
will participate in it so that they can engage in the lesson. Then there there will report the data.
This kind of game definitely helps you to gain the knowledge when you first encounter Biostatis-
tics.”
“...Situation would play a bigger role for the post knowledge aspect of learning.”
(Using a game to generate a data set) then “My intention is to stimulate the students to think
about their statistics after they score/collection of data. But again I see that it is not spontane-
ous.”
SUGGESTIONS
5 Post Knowledge Help to firm up acquired Using existing data, consolidate from all
concepts students and discuss.
Eg. Utilize phone data
Mandi’s feedback on 1st game : Maybe we can use something more
close to home (Instead of bow and arrow or gambling) Like their
phone data that already exists and be used for discussion. If its just
giving them context for information maybe we don’t an app to do it
because everyone has a data set somewhere, e.g. how many times
do you log into facebook. If this generates interest maybe this
could be a good start to increase their engagement.
DENTAL PRODUCT
ADVERTISEMENTS Q&A COVERING
PHONE DATA ALL CONTENT
E.G. VISITS TO FACEBOOK
POST KNOWLEDGE
HANDS-ON THINKING
DISEASE RISK
ASSESSMENT
PRE KNOWLEDGE
PROBE GAME
GAMBLING/SHOOTING
The suggested game format of mini-games lies in the low-density content quardrants of the
product positioning map, and lean more toward thinking (as opposed to hands-on) gameplay.
Minigames are more feasible in terms of immediate production, but is limited in the amount of
content that it can contain. It is important to think about the long-term costs of producing mini
games to cover the entire syllabus, or value of only focusing on a few topics/minigames.
Mini games are optimal for piqueing interest at the beginning of acquiring pre-knowledge, but
may have less value as the same questions or gameplay is repeated each week. This may be
mitgated by generating level-based platforms which correspond to the students week-by-week
exposure to the content in class. However, it will incur greater costs.
Mini-games might not be the most apt method to support scenario-driven gameplay. This means
less opportunity for students to apply their knowledge in a realistic and spontaneous context.
Hence, mini-games may be limited in its ability to fulfil Post-knowledge, which was stated to be
a goal of the Biostatistics game.
conclusion
APPENDIX
APPENDIX I
Prof Hsu
“And I think gambling is a great way to (because you
have to) estimate, and it comes at a cost, so there’s an
emotional attachment to your decision. So if there is a
way to develop a game that is geared toward/ expose
them to understand probability…”
“Dental advertisements”
Dr Hsu
“I’m trying to ask them, when they identify e.g. mean of
7 data set, x of a score of (0-100). If Yilin’s average is 60,
and standard deviation is 5, then when we give them the
class curve and the class has a mean, based on probabil-
ity, where would yilin be? Somehow he will know that his
name game score probably will be somewhere (gestures).
Bringing in the concept that this is a class, and this is the
distribution of the class, where I am. To be average is to
belong to the majority (Mean +/- 2sd) Do u think you are
an average student?”