Knowledge improvement of dental students in Thailand and UK through an online serious game in Dental Public Health

Abstract

© ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2016. A serious game for Dental Public Health (DPH), GRAPHIC, was developed to support students in designing health promotion programmes at King’s College London. Based on the evaluation data from an initial pilot study, there was evidence that GRAPHIC had the potential to be a global learning tool. Taking this evidence into account, a new version of GRAPHIC in Thai language was developed for students at Mahidol University in Thailand. King’s and Mahidol dental students piloted these two otherwise identical versions in January and February 2015 to test the knowledge acquisition in DPH. The students were given the opportunity to carry out activities in GRAPHIC, including completing pre- and post-knowledge tests. The initial findings support the effectiveness of GRAPHIC as a learning tool because the disciplinary knowledge of students from both institutions was significantly improved after interacting with the game. The paper presents these findings and makes recommendations for further improvements to the game.