A Low-Fidelity Game-Based Approach to Teaching Health Assessment: Its not Just a Game!!

Game-based teaching-learning activities positively impact student learning in academic programs, particularly in nursing education where learning nursing concepts, disease processes, assessment skills and management may be overwhelming in the traditional classroom setting. The purpose of this paper was to describe a teaching—learning approach, and to discuss lessons learned using games to teach basic health assessment in first-level BSN program. The approach and organization constructs were interventional descriptive and non-experimental. In conclusion, lessons learned yield that teaching health assessment content as a game may promote student and faculty involvement, excitement, and motivation. A game checklist was developed to evaluate student perception of game effectiveness. Key words: games, game-based teaching, simulation, health assessment