Evaluating TESLA-G, a Gamified, Telegram-delivered, Quizzing Platform for Surgical Education in Medical Students
- Conditions
- Surgical Education in Medical Students
- Interventions
- Other: Conventional quizzing platformOther: Gamified online quizzing platform
- Registration Number
- NCT05520671
- Lead Sponsor
- Nanyang Technological University
- Brief Summary
Telegram Education for Surgical Learning and Application Gamified (TESLA-G) is an online, gamified quizzing platform for surgical education in medical students.The main objective of this pilot study is to assess the feasibility and acceptability of carrying out a full randomised control trial involving TESLA-G.
A pilot randomised controlled trial involving 50 undergraduate medical students will be conducted. They will be randomised into an intervention group and an active control group.
Feasibility will be determined by participant enrollment, retention rate, and quiz completion. Acceptability will be measured quantitatively via a post-intervention learner satisfaction survey and qualitatively via semi-structured interviews. Additionally, participants' scores for pre- and post-intervention knowledge tests will be compared.
- Detailed Description
Online multiple-choice question (MCQ) quizzes are a well-established summative assessment tool in medical education. However, they suffer from high drop-out rates, attributed to waning user motivation over time. Various studies have shown that incorporation of gamified elements into learning can promote engagement and motivation.
In this pilot study, we will assess the feasibility and acceptability of a novel gamified quizzing platform, Telegram Education for Surgical Learning and Application Gamified (TESLA-G), to determine the possibility of a future larger-scale randomised controlled trial.
This study entails a randomised controlled trial with two arms, an intervention group (TESLA-G) and an active control group (conventional quizzing platform). 50 first to fifth year medical students from Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University will be randomised into the two arms with a 1:1 allocation ratio, stratified by year of study. Participants will use the assigned quizzing platform to attempt questions on a specific topic (endocrine surgery) over a period of two weeks.
At the end of the study period, several outcomes will be assessed. Feasibility will be determined by participant enrollment, retention rate, and quiz completion. Acceptability will be measured quantitatively via a post-intervention learner satisfaction survey and qualitatively via semi-structured interviews. Additionally, participants' scores for pre- and post-intervention knowledge tests will be compared.
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- NOT_YET_RECRUITING
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 50
- Currently enrolled in a full-time 5-year undergraduate programme in the medical school that leads to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS)
- Willing and able to provide consent for participating in the entire duration of the study including all pre- and post-study assessments
- NIL
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- PARALLEL
- Arm && Interventions
Group Intervention Description Control Conventional quizzing platform Participants will be randomised into the two arms with a 1:1 allocation ratio stratified by year of study. There will be 25 participants in this arm. TESLA-G Gamified online quizzing platform Participants will be randomised into the two arms with a 1:1 allocation ratio stratified by year of study. There will be 25 participants in this arm.
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Acceptability of intervention Post-intervention (14 days) Acceptability of the intervention is measured quantitatively via a post-intervention learner satisfaction survey and qualitatively via semi-structured interviews.
Feasibility of intervention 14 days The feasibility of the intervention will be evaluated quantitatively. These are the objectives:
1. Enrollment of 50 participants
2. Retention of at least 75% of the enrolled participants
3. Individual quiz completion rate of 80%
Achieving all of these goals will prove that it is feasible to conduct a full-scale randomised controlled trial (RCT), while achieving two out of three goals will indicate that it is probably feasible. Achieving less than two goals will suggest that a full-scale RCT is not feasible with the current procedure.
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Improvement of surgical knowledge Pre and post-intervention (14 days) Scores of pre- and post-intervention quizzes will be compared. The quizzes, which are on endocrine surgery, will be drafted by two board-certified general surgeons and one endocrinologist. All questions will also be validated by the research team. It should be noted however, that the power of study will be inadequate in identifying the comparative effectiveness between the control and intervention groups in terms of improvement of surgical knowledge. Hence the analysis will be primarily conducted to identify any potential adverse effects and increase in the surgical knowledge within each group, and secondarily between groups. This will be done using a confidence interval of 95% using a small effect size of 0.2.
Participant satisfaction Post-intervention (14 days) All participants will also complete a post-intervention learner satisfaction survey, in the form of a Likert scale adapted from the System Usability Survey (SUS) (Brooke et al., 1996) and the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) Questionnaire. The survey will assess if students in the intervention group are more satisfied with their experience than students in the control group.
Retention of surgical knowledge 14 days after intervention After another 14 days, participants will sit for a follow-up knowledge test, which once again consists of 20 MCQs on endocrine surgery conducted over 30 minutes. At this point, participants in both control and intervention groups will no longer be able to access the learning platforms. The difficulty level of the follow-up test will be similar to that of the post-intervention test as described earlier. The difference in test scores (post-intervention and follow-up) will indicate participant retention of surgical knowledge.