(359) Gamification of Social Behavior Theory Application: A Candy Land Inspired Tool

Objective : Health behaviors include personal attributes, habits, and other choices which impact the health status of the patient. Social behavioral theories [SBTs] aim to understand the who, what, why, and how, of health behaviors. Gamification of difficult concepts has been shown to improve student comprehension and material retention. The objective of this study was to describe the gamification of social behavioral theories through the development of a candy land inspired tool and evaluate the impact on student comprehension compared to traditional lecture-based methods.

Methods: The Candy Land inspired game, “Theory Land” was played for 2.5 hours total, after two separate hour and fifteen-minute lectures. Graduate students were paired in groups of two. Teams were assigned to one of four health interventions. On a team's turn, they drew a theory card, matched to Candy Land move cards, from selected SBTs. SBTs included Health Belief Model, Transtheoretical Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, Social Cognitive Theory, RE-AIM, Diffusion of Innovations, Organizational Readiness for Change, and PRECEDE-PROCEED. The team then attempted to apply the card drawn to their assigned health intervention. If the response was sufficient, the team moved forward to the space indicated. The first team to reach the end of the Candy Land path won the game. Independent t-test was used to compare exam scores to the previous delivery of this content which was solely lecture-based.

Results: There was a statistically significant (p=0.035) difference in mean exam scores between the gamification of SBT group 90.67 (4.34) and the non-gamification group 75.5 (14.01).

Conclusions: The use of gamification aided graduate students in successfully applying SBT to various health challenges indicating further use of gamification in pharmacy graduate-level courses to improve student comprehension.