Can Bloom’s Higher Order Thinking skills be achieved by Gamified Learning through Social Networking Sites (SNS) like Facebook?

Abstract

Medical students commonly may resort to rote learning of complex medical topics such as neuroanatomy, primarily if they disengage and work in silos. Providing students with engaging and interactive content, especially of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) of Blooms, to understand such complex topics and simultaneously providing an opportunity for collaborative learning can be beneficial. This can allow authentic learning towards competency to handle complex medical issues. To address this, the present study developed a novel social network site using three key aspects: An integrated curriculum delivery approach with the integration of games to stimulate creativity (Gamified content), real-life medical scenarios (authentic Case-based learning), and the provision of a social networking platform (Facebook) to voice ‘students’ thoughts through simple, group brainstorming in an informal learning space (social media). Innovatively ‘Bloom’s taxonomy is used to create gamified quizzes of increasing difficulty levels and HOTS levels. We identify’ students’ engagement and learning effectiveness of social networking and gamified learning by medical students over traditional learning management systems. The Lecturers’ feedback also evaluates how well the learning outcomes are planned to be achieved through the learning designs of such games. We found that this learning design combining SNS with games at various levels enhanced the learning processes.