Designing branching scenarios to support clinical reasoning in dental education

Abstract

Branching scenarios are educational tools where dental students can explore their decision making in a clinical environment without risking harm to patients. By incorporating productive failure, adaptive learning and serious gaming elements into their design, they offer interactive and personalised learning environments. We aimed to design a branching scenario based on a patient presenting with dental pain and evaluate its implementation in a classroom setting. We employed a validated serious gaming model as the framework for our design and mapped a decision tree on a scalable whiteboard for the case. A survey platform was used to build the scenario using rule-based logic. The scenario included multiple ‘learning points’ with tailored feedback. Students can track how many learning points they have ‘unlocked’ and are encouraged to revisit previously uncovered pathways. Classroom observations, learning analytics and student feedback have been collected to evaluate the activity. Preliminary feedback has informed improvements to the branching scenario design and educators have found the learning analytics can be used to tailor future teaching sessions. Future steps include useability testing and design improvements based on student feedback.