SBIR-STTR Award

The objective of Me, A Doc! is to educate high school and undergraduate students through an inquiry-centric, web-based video game in which each student plays the role of a doctor confronted with a mysterious illness. The game will test our hypothesis that the principles of cooperative learning, note-taking, literacy scaffolding, feedback learning, inquiry, and simulated real-life experiences can be combined in a motivational, computer- based game to improve student learning about human physiology, cell biology, and disease - all in a non- judgmental way that fosters critical thinking and reduces the achievement gap often seen with minority or economically disadvantaged students. Me, A Doc! will involve the user as a doc reading and taking notes from a library, taking notes from case histories and physical and laboratory examinations, linking these notes to those selected from the library, selecting tests and procedures (listed with costs and time for completion) from a virtual, scrollable, database window, explaining processes to the virtual patient, and, finally, arriving at the best diagnosis and prescribing the most appropriate therapy in the shortest time at the lowest cost. We anticipate that pilot testing of the first case developed during Phase I will reveal the technical feasibility of Me, A Doc! and show that it is appreciated by and exciting to students and teachers. During Phase I we will develop the user interface with relevant reception, office, laboratory, and procedure rooms, develop a storyboard and library to support the first case with alternative diagnoses that can be logically reduced to one, obtain student and teacher feedback from a pilot feasibility test, and plan the Phase II project. During Phase II, we expect to create and pilot-test additional cases, recruit schools, and run an extensive, controlled evaluation managed by an external, independent team of experts. Primary outcome variables will be 1) improvement in understanding of biology, physiology, and disease, and 2) reduction in the achievement gap often seen between the performance of groups of students differing in gender, race/ethnicity, educational background, and socioeconomic status. Secondary outcome variables will be measures of student and teacher attitudes and possible change in science career plans. The project is directly relevant to the mission of the NCRR: application of educational technology and tools for education on health science topics... Topics can range from basic molecular and cellular biology to human diseases... that can be extended to enhance the health science literacy of the general public.

Public Health Relevance:
Me, A Doc! proposes an innovative approach to engage our youth in a pedagogically strong program with the motivating impact of video games. Focused on medical diagnosis, Me, A Doc! uses critical thinking and scientific inquiry to guide students in understanding biology, physiology, and healthcare. This could help improve the health literacy of our citizenry and thereby reduce health care costs.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
Me, A Doc! proposes an innovative approach to engage our youth in a pedagogically strong program with the motivating impact of video games. Focused on medical diagnosis, Me, A Doc! uses critical thinking and scientific inquiry to guide students in understanding biology, physiology, and healthcare. This could help improve the health literacy of our citizenry and thereby reduce health care costs.

NIH Spending Category:
Basic Behavioral and Social Science; Behavioral and Social Science; Clinical Research; Pediatric.

Project Terms:
Achievement; Attitude; Back; base; Biology; Books; career; case history; Cellular biology; Clinic; Computer software; Computers; Consult; Consultations; cost; Databases; Development; Diagnosis; Disease; Economically Deprived Population; Educational aspects; Educational Background; Educational Technology; Ethnicity aspects; Evaluation; Feedback; follow-up; Fostering; Gender; General Population; Health Care Costs; health literacy; Health Sciences; Healthcare; high school; Human; Human Biology; human disease; improved; innovation; interdisciplinary approach; Laboratories; Laboratory Procedures; Laboratory Study; Learning; Libraries; Licensing; Life Experience; Link; literacy; Measures; Medical; Medicine; member; Methods; Minority; Mission; Molecular and Cellular Biology; National Center for Research Resources; Online Systems; Patients; Performance; Phase; Physical Examination; Physiological; Physiology; Play; primary outcome; Procedures; Process; programs; public health relevance; Race; Reading; Recruitment Activity; response; Role; Running; scaffold; Schools; Science; secondary outcome; Simulate; skills; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Socioeconomic Status; socioeconomics; Students; teacher; Testing; Text; theories; Thinking, function; Time; tool; Video Games; virtual; Visit; Work; Youth

Me, A Doc! is a serious medical diagnosis role-playing simulator program in a video game interface that aims to improve high school and college student learning about the biology of disease in a way that fosters critical thinking and reduces the achievement gap often seen with minority or disadvantaged students - goals of the NIH. Players assume the role of a doctor who takes histories, makes diagnoses, and, ultimately, recommends treatments. In each case, players ask questions to learn symptoms, do exams to obtain signs, and order laboratory tests. Using evidence-based inquiry in a virtual library, the player reaches a diagnosis, answers a series of Socratic feedback learning questions that clarify and stimulate thinking, and then, during an epilogue, learns the outcome for each case. The approach, which partners library inquiry, evidence-based reasoning, literacy scaffolding, and feedback learning, is designed to educate high school students, undergraduate students, and others contemplating a health professions career about the diagnosis of disease and medically related biology. A prototype of Me, A Doc! was developed during Phase I and evaluation showed that students warmly welcomed the program, used evidence-based reasoning to sort through complex information and arrive at a diagnosis, and learned about medical science during the process. Aims for Phase II are: (1) improve the program infrastructure, expand program capabilities, and manage new extensions;(2) develop a prioritized list of chief complaints associated with common diseases, and create supporting library files and definitions;(3) develop new cases from these disease-related files;(4) monitor development of the resulting cases with focus groups and conduct a controlled evaluation;and (5) evaluate commercialization strategies, identify and develop partnership arrangements for marketing and distribution to schools and colleges, and design a marketing and dissemination campaign for licensing individual use. Evaluation with 600 students (high school and college) in class and working individually outside of class will involve two pre-tests to assess the effect of test-taking on knowledge gain and a post test to assess the effect of the program on knowledge gain, attitude, interest, and motivation. Prior results with a similar approach suggest that Me, A Doc! will result in knowledge gain, promote critical thinking, and reduce the achievement gap seen too often in the performance of students differing in race/ethnicity, educational background, and socioeconomics - all while generating strong student appreciation and support.

Public Health Relevance:
Consistent with the goals of the Funding Opportunity Announcement, Me, A Doc! is a new, discovery-oriented educational software program that will provide technology and tools for high school and undergraduate students to learn about human disease and related biology in an engaging and motivating way. Designed for use in classrooms or by individuals with computers or tablets, this interactive learning tool can be disseminated widely and will lead to enhanced health science literacy of students and the public.

Thesaurus Terms:
Achievement;Achievement Attainment;Attitude;Biology;Bundling;Code;Coding System;Collection;Complex;Computer Programs And Programming;Computer Software;Computers;Data;Decision Making;Development;Diagnosis;Diagnostic;Diagnostic Findings;Disadvantaged;Disease;Disorder;Education Level;Educational Background;Ethnic Origin;Ethnicity;Ethnicity Aspects;Evaluation;Extensible Markup Language;Feedback;Focus Groups;Fostering;Frequencies (Time Pattern);Frequency;Funding Opportunities;Goals;Health Occupations;Health Professions;Health Sciences;History;Image;Individual;Infrastructure;Knowledge;Lab Findings;Laboratories;Laboratory Finding;Lead;Learning;Libraries;Licensing;Link;Marketing;Medical;Methods;Minority;Monitor;Motivation;Nih;National Institutes Of Health;On-Line Systems;Online Systems;Outcome;Patients;Pb Element;Performance;Phase;Play;Process;Race;Racial Group;Racial Stocks;Recording Of Previous Events;Relative;Relative (Related Person);Research Infrastructure;Role;Running;Schools;Science;Series;Signs And Symptoms;Simulate;Software;Sorting - Cell Movement;Students;Symptoms;Tablets;Technology;Testing;Thinking;Thinking, Function;United States National Institutes Of Health;Video Games;Virtual Library;Work;Xml;Animation;Base;Career;College;College Student;Collegiate;Commercialization;Computer Program;Computer Program/Software;Computer Programming;Design;Designing;Developmental;Disease Diagnosis;Disease/Disorder;Evidence Base;Experiment;Experimental Research;Experimental Study;Health Science Profession;Heavy Metal Pb;Heavy Metal Lead;High School;Human Disease;Imaging;Improved;Innovate;Innovation;Innovative;Interest;Literacy;Online Computer;Programs;Prototype;Research Study;Response;Scaffold;Scaffolding;Skills;Social Role;Socio Economic;Socio-Economic;Socioeconomic;Socioeconomically;Socioeconomics;Sorting;Tablet (Pharmacologic);Theories;Thoughts;Tool;University Student;Web Based