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In-Depth Information
requires navigating and interaction with elements in a virtual pharmacy. The structure
and gameplay of the Virtual Dispensary prototype places the game within the 'puzzle
game' genre, as it consists of conceptual reasoning challenges requiring extrinsic
knowledge for successful completion [3].
The game world itself is based on a virtual tour created from sixteen, 360ยบ pano-
ramic photographs of a community pharmacy. The functionality of the community
pharmacy tour allows students to navigate about the pharmacy and zoom in to ex-
amine products in detail. The tour also provides information about the key locations
of the pharmacy by way of auditory descriptions and information pop-ups. Players
have the task of identifying and verifying prescriptions, which includes checking
medication packaging and labels on interactive 3D models situated at typical loca-
tions.
3
Usability Study
The subjects for the study were 10 students currently studying the Masters of Phar-
macy program at the University of Newcastle. There were six males, and four fe-
males. Four of the subjects were under the age of 23, four were between the ages of
24-34 and two were older than 35. Most subjects (n=9) completed the game in less
than 30 minutes while one subject played for slightly longer. After completing the
game, subjects completed an anonymous survey, containing eleven Likert-scale ques-
tions designed to measure the perceived effectiveness and usability (Table 1) of the
Virtual Dispensary. Students could also respond to two open questions to identify the
features of the Virtual Dispensary they enjoyed the most and to suggest possible im-
provements.
In terms of effectiveness, all 10 subjects agreed that the Virtual Dispensary pro-
vided an effective way of learning about dispensing. For the two questions related to
confidence, 12 of the twenty responses agreed that the game improved their confi-
dence about dispensing while five disagreed. Seven of the subjects formed no opinion
about whether or not the application stimulated their interest to learn.
When asked to identify the best thing about the Virtual Dispensary, four noted the
scripting examples with checking. Three subjects highlighted the realism of the phar-
macy environment and three suggesting the interactive products and packing as key
elements. A range of improvements were suggested, these focused on providing more
content, in particular three subjects requested increasing the number of products and
scripts available. Another four subjects wanted more product information to be inte-
grated into the game. Other subjects suggested integrating even more elements of
pharmacy practice, such as patient counselling into the game.
According to the feedback, the application of interactive and game elements was
perceived to be a fun and effective learning technique, however this is no indication
of the effectiveness in terms of learning outcomes. There were some interesting feed-
back elements, namely that the majority of respondents indicated that the game func-
tions were well integrated. Further development that provides more product informa-
tion and interactive components is the next goal of this research followed by better
measure of effectiveness using pre and post testing of student knowledge [4].
