Serious Game Versus Online Course to Pre-train Medical Students on the Management of an Adult Cardiac Arrest.

Technology-enhanced simulation allows mastery learning. Mastery learning is a variety of competency-based education which has demonstrated its efficacy for skills acquisition and their transfer to actual settings. While traditional education defines fixed learning time and allows outcomes to vary, in mastery learning, all trainees must achieve a predefined level of proficiency while their learning time can vary. The main limitation of mastery learning is that it takes more time than non-mastery learning. This is of concern because the main barrier to simulation-based training is the lack of faculty time. Thus, new solutions should emerge to conciliate mastery learning and time constraints on physical simulators.

Pre-training with a "simulation game" may be a mean to reach this objective. Simulation games are serious games which are at the cross roads between (1) educational games which are "applications using the characteristics of video and computer games to create engaging and immersive learning experiences", and (2) simulation, the imitation of situations which can be encountered in real-life. They combine the advantages of educational games (active, personalized learning) and simulation (realistic and safe environment for experiential learning). By contrast, pre-training with an online course using a PowerPoint presentation with voiceover narration lecture is both passive and abstract.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the time-efficiency of pre-training using a simulation game versus an online course to reach mastery learning in the management of an adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.