Open AccessDoctoral physical therapy students’ increased confidence following exploration of active video gaming systems in a problem-based learning curriculum in the United States: a pre- and post-intervention study
Author(s) -
Michelle E. Wormley,
Wendy Romney,
Diana Veneri,
Andrea Oberlander
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of educational evaluation for health professions
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.397
H-Index - 9
ISSN - 1975-5937
DOI - 10.3352/jeehp.2022.19.7
Subject(s) - interquartile range , cohort , medicine , confidence interval , wilcoxon signed rank test , descriptive statistics , curriculum , test (biology) , physical therapy , intervention (counseling) , cohort study , psychology , mann–whitney u test , surgery , nursing , statistics , paleontology , pedagogy , mathematics , biology
Purpose: Active video gaming (AVG) is used in physical therapy (PT) to treat individuals with a variety of diagnoses across the lifespan. The literature supports improvements in balance, cardiovascular endurance, and motor control; however, evidence is lacking regarding the implementation of AVG in PT education. This study investigated doctoral physical therapy (DPT) students’ confidence following active exploration of AVG systems as a PT intervention in the United States. Methods: This pretest-posttest study included 60 DPT students in 2017 (Cohort 1) and 55 students in 2018 (Cohort 2) enrolled in a problem-based learning curriculum. AVG systems were embedded into patient cases and 2 interactive laboratory classes across 2 consecutive semesters (April-December 2017 and April-December 2018). Participants completed a 31-question survey before the intervention and 8 months later. Students’ confidence was rated for general use, game selection, plan of care, set-up, documentation, setting, and demographics. Descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to compare differences in confidence pre- and post-intervention. Results: Both cohorts showed increased confidence at the post-test (cohort 1: pre-test, median [IQR]=57.1 [44.3-63.5]), post-test, median [IQR]=79.1 [73.1-85.4]; cohort 2: pre-test, median [IQR]=61.4 [48.0-70.7], post-test, median [IQR]=89.3 [80.0-93.2]). Cohort 2 was significantly more confident at baseline than cohort 1 (P<0.05). In cohort 1, students’ data were paired and confidence levels significantly increased in all domains: use, Z=-6.2 (P<0.01); selection, Z=-5.9 (P<0.01); plan of care, Z=-6.0 (P<0.01); set-up, Z=-5.5 (P<0.01); documentation, Z=-6.0 (P<0.01); setting, Z=-6.3 (P<0.01); and total score, Z=-6.4 (P<0.01). Conclusion: Structured, active experiences with AVG resulted in a significant increase in students’ confidence. As technology advances in healthcare delivery, it is essential to expose students to these technologies in the classroom.