HealthCare Heroes is a Roblox medical role-play game. The game offers the potential to build awareness and spark an interest in healthcare careers among middle school students. In the digital gamified environment, students sharpen skills in self-guided discovery of practical roles and knowledge in healthcare that nurtures agency, confidence (efficacy), and interest among participants towards healthcare career formation and early participation in STEM subjects. Players assume different healthcare roles, such as triage nurse, and role-play different patient scenarios to give players as close to a hands-on experience as possible.
The blend of technology and experiential learning of medical elements augments career exploration classes and awareness in middle school years and may help enhance engagement in science and health education related to career formation in healthcare and medical fields.
Why play this game?
The game is structured to create awareness and interest in healthcare and STEM pathways, middle school participants complete clinical tasks addressing medical cases presenting at the hospital or in emergency care through multiple scenarios in the game. Participants complete the tasks in gamified roles of nurses and/ or physicians gaming experiential learning and role play on health care activities. Participants also encounter other medical professionals providing insight into different health roles.
What are we trying to accomplish with this specific game?
The Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society is committed to advancing human-centered data-driven innovations that create awareness and interest in healthcare and STEM pathways among middle school participants through gamified approaches.
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To learn more about this game, or other gamified education research within the Lucy Family Institute, please contact Sugana Chawla, associate professor of the practice; director of data science education & iTREDS Program at schawla@nd.edu.