Role Playing Game (RPG) on nursing undergraduate course: educational potentials
The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of a Role Playing Game as an educational strategy in Undergraduate Nursing course, emphasizing its subjective implications in understanding aspects of the profession. This is a qualitative study, conducted through an evaluative research, of deployment analysis type. Nursing students of the 3rd period participated. The instrument to collection was Memories of Game, reports prepared by students after game sessions. The game is a non traditional educational strategy that enabled approach to students through professional practice, active participation, self reflection and reflection on professional practice. This strategy favored individualization processes, allowing students to experience situations similar to the nursing practice and exercise skills such as teamwork and creativity. The expansion of studies that address the subjective processes in higher education, through simulation games, can contribute to better design of health development processes. Descriptors: Education, Nursing; Teaching Materials; Educational Technology; Play and Playthings. INTRODUCTION The National Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Nursing Course (DCN/ENF) guide the (re)signification of educational strategies used in nursing training. This is because there is a prevalence of traditional educational strategies, guided by the reproduction of knowledge over the critical, reflexive construction. As the DCN/ENF, it is important that the educational strategies are guided in a dialogic and interactional design, in which the students actively participate in the construction of knowledge, and the This article was excerpted from the Master's thesis entitled "Role Playing Game (RPG) development and pedagogical strategy assessment for critical and autonomous nursing education" held in 2013, presented to the Nursing Graduate Studies Program of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. 1 Nurse, Master in Nursing. Doctoral student of the Nursing Graduate Studies Program of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. E mail: amandanathale0708@gmail.com. 2 Biologist, PhD in Education. Associate Professor of the Applied Nursing Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. E mail: flaviagazzinelli@yahoo.com.br. 3 Nurse, PhD in Public Health. Associate Professor of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. E mail: vaniaxsouza@yahoo.com.br. 4 Nurse, Master in Nursing. Doctoral student of the Nursing Graduate Studies Program of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. E mail: lucaslobato87@gmail.com. Received: 09/17/2015. Accepted: 06/29/2016. Published: 12/01/2016. Suggested citation: Soares AN, Gazzinelli MF, Souza V, Araujo LHL. Role Playing Game (RPG) on nursing undergraduate course: educational potentials. Rev. Eletr. Enf. [Internet] 2016 [cited __/__/__];18:e1178. Available from: http:/dx.doi.org/10.5216/ree.v18.37672. Soares AN, Gazzinelli MF, Souza V, Araujo LHL. Rev. Eletr. Enf. [Internet] 2016 [cited __/__/__];18:e1178. Available from: http:/dx.doi.org/10.5216/ree.v18.37672. 2 teacher creates and offers challenging situations that encourage the questioning and the search for knowledge. In this sense, the games can be facilitators of the teaching learning process. Defined as a free action lived in a fictional order, the game can be a strategy capable of fostering dialogue, autonomy, joint construction of knowledge, the creation of challenging and reflective environments, practice of skills and better acquisition of content. In undergraduate Nursing course, the use of games is identified in different national and international experiences, although it is often directed to the effects of the acquisition of knowledge and clinical skills of the students. Simulation games, characterized by the incorporation of character and illusive reality and the combination of action and invention, are also often aimed at improving knowledge and clinical skills Attention to subjective implications of the game in the understanding of health dimensions involved in the profession and on aspects that characterize the situations experienced by nurses in professional practice is unusual. Noticing the subjective implications means giving visibility to the effects produced by the game that affect the players, causing them to connect with their emotions and experiences and making new meanings about training and profession. For being illusory and inventive, it is believed that a simulation game, as the Role Playing Game (RPG) can go beyond the emphasis on knowledge and skills. It may favor the production of subjective implications that, when revealed, potentiate reflection on nursing training. Thus, in this study we tried to assess the potential of a RPG game as an educational strategy in Undergraduate Nursing course, emphasizing its subjective implications in understanding aspects of the profession. METHOD This is a qualitative study, conducted through an evaluative research, of deployment analysis type. The analysis of the implementation is intended to study the relationship between an intervention and its context during its implementation. With this type of analysis, we aimed to the identification of the relationships between the game context and its effects, allowing the appreciation of how, in a particular context, intervention has caused changes. This research was held in the School of Nursing of a public university in the state of Minas Gerais. In the last change of the Undergraduate Nursing Course in this university, a set of disciplines was developed, entitled Seminars of Integration, in order to address issues of nursing training as well as understanding of its activities and the development of critical and reflective thinking. RPG game was implemented and assessed in the context of these disciplines, between May and June 2012. Participants were students of Undergraduate nursing course. Inclusion criteria were: belonging to the 3rd period and be regularly enrolled in the Seminars A and B and the exclusion criterion was refusing to participate in the study. All students enrolled in the course participated in the game, and the participation in Soares AN, Gazzinelli MF, Souza V, Araujo LHL. Rev. Eletr. Enf. [Internet] 2016 [cited __/__/__];18:e1178. Available from: http:/dx.doi.org/10.5216/ree.v18.37672. 3 the research was voluntary. RPG is a role play game, defined as a cooperative activity in which a group of players, led by a master (narrator) creates an oral, written or animated story. In higher education, RPG allows the exercise of decision making, reasoning, imagination, cooperation, interaction and building concepts(13 14) The assessed RPG game, entitled "Order of Ers" was developed by a multidisciplinary team consisting of a PhD in Education, a PhD in Health Sciences, a psychologist, a nurse, a Nursing undergraduate student and two RPG specialists. Its creation process, lasting six months, involved the steps of setting the game design; prototype creation; assessment of its dynamics by RPG players; and preparation of masters. "The Order of Ers" is a reality metaphor of the student of Nursing undergraduate course before the main nursing work scenarios primary care, hospital care, management and education research. This metaphor is represented by a fictional story that describes the journey of a group of learners who should help maintain the well being of the population of their kingdom after a war. In this context, students create a character (picture, name, age, story and skills) to represent it in the game and are invited to experience problem situations that portray the nurse reality in the main practice settings, called in the game as the House of the Helpers, the repairers, of the Sustainers and of the Trainers. These denominations correspond, respectively, to the scenarios presented above, and their suffixes, "Ers" gave rise to the name of the game. Situations experienced in these Houses are narrated in the game by the master and for each of them students must build resolutions together. The game was applied to groups of six students, in six two hour sessions, weekly. Each group was led by a trained master. After participating in each session, students wrote one page, called Memories of Game, and sent in a period of 24 hours. The guidance was for them to refer regarding their impressions about the situations experienced, the feelings and exercised skills. These Memories of Game were the data collection instrument of this research. The texts of Memories were analyzed using the content analysis considering the pre analysis steps, which were organized by fluctuating readings; material exploration, from which encoding and data categorization were developed; and interpretation, which led the search for patterns. In this study the requirements of Brazilian law for research with human beings were considered, with the approval of the Research Ethics Committee (CAAE: 04827712.3.0000.5149) Students who have expressed interest to participate signed the Free and Clarified Consent Term after collective reading and clarifications to the researchers. To ensure anonymity, the students are identified by the letter "S" followed by a number that designates them. RESULTS In the game evaluation 32 students participated, of which 29 women (90.6% aged between 18 and 30 years old (average: 20.6 years, SD: 2.74) The majority of participants had joined one and a half year before the study (81% while the other students had joined one (16% or two years before (3% Soares AN, Gazzinelli MF, Souza V, Araujo LHL. Rev. Eletr. Enf. [Internet] 2016 [cited __/__/__];18:e1178. Available from: http:/dx.doi.org/10.5216/ree.v18.37672. 4 In the analysis of the Memories of Game, five categories appeared, among which the category "Educational potential" stands