Comparing flow experience of medical students in cognitive, behavioral, and social educational games: A quasi-experimental study

Background & Objective: This study contributed to the current body of literature on educational games by comparing medical students’ flow experience in three types of educational games developed based on three learning theories: behavioral, cognitive, and social. Materials & Methods: A quasi-experimental repeated measure design was employed. A total of 39 second-year medical students played three neuroanatomy educational games developed based on cognitive, behavioral, and social learning theories. At the end of each game, students completed a standard flow experience scale developed by Pearce et al. (2005) with Content Validity Ratio=0.65 and Alpha=0.76 in our context. The repeated-measures ANOVA was used for the comparisons of three games. Results:  No evidence was found to indicate that the flow experience of medical students differs when they play cognitive, behavioral, or social educational games (P=0.40). The repeated measure test showed that the mean of students’ scores on subdomains of flow experience (Enjoyment (P=0.10), engagement (P=0.46), and control (P=0.82) did not differ significantly in three different games. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it was observed that the different dimensions of flow (i.e., engagement, control, and enjoyment) are not statistically significant in the three types of games. It seems that all three types of games have brought a high level of engagement, a sense of control over learning, and a high level of enjoyment for students. However, considering the lessons learned from this intervention, the social game could be seen as a “learning ground” for enabling a host of skills, including the ability to engage in shared decision-making in teams.