GAMICAL: Simulating Medical Module Using Gamification Approach

Abstract

Medical curricula in the foundation years in King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, focus on teaching students' symptoms and diseases. Medical students acquire their knowledge and skills by exploring the clinical environment and interacting with clinicians and patients in various contexts. The paper presents an e-learning approach to assist medical students in acquiring knowledge and skills by interacting with virtual patients in preset scenarios. The e-learning systems currently in use offer materials targeted to one audience, regardless of differences in students’ backgrounds, interests, and goals. These platforms are also usually centered around a single learning method, which may adversely affect the achievement of learning outcomes. Therefore, this paper proposes an adaptive e-learning system, "GAMICAL," which can adapt to and control medical students’ learning in their endocrine physiology module, with the goal of improving their diagnostic skills. GAMICAL uses animation and images to present medical cases, symptoms, and situations visually. The integration of gamification features into the academic material may enhance the learning process by boosting student engagement and motivation.