Educational Application Design Process Experiences : Case Perioperative Nursing

From an educational point of view, the only relevant basis for the design of an educational application is the learning objectives of the content area. In the development process of an educational application, there are also other people involved besides educational experts. This paper describes a project which primarily aims at developing an application for the needs of enhancing perioperative nursing skills’. Besides application development, the project included research about the process. The research task was to discover how the real – not only the formal – objectives could work as the starting point for the construction of an educational game-like application. This paper presents the study process based on the panel discussions of nursing teachers. In the panels, the teachers elaborated the objectives. The transcribed discussions were analysed in terms of conceptions of learning and teaching of perioperative nursing. The outcomes, the elaborated objectives, were aimed to be used as a basis for the implementation of an educational game. In addition, the discussions were analysed from the perspective of the learning paradigm they reflected. It is argued that views of learning are necessary to be understood in order to make appropriate choices of educational strategy throughout the development process. Finally, this paper presents initial observations of a user study of the game. They are discussed from the point of view of project success and the potential of the chosen approach. It is concluded that the construction of this kind of game is a much more effective means of learning than the playing of it, thus suggesting that students themselves should be used as authors.