White blood cell game: a teaching method

Abstract

The ability to understand the features of the white blood cell is an important skill for medical undergraduates. The objective was to develop a game that would improve medical students' knowledge about the value and interpretation of the white blood cell. The game consists of 63 cards, including different clinical cases involving conditions that modify white blood cell count, related laboratory findings, and the respective diagnosis. The objective of the game was to match the three groups of cards, explaining their association. The evaluation tools included pretests and posttests, in addition to a structured questionnaire to identify the overall perception of the game. The game was applied to 90 undergraduate pre-clinical medical students of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The results of this study show that pretest and posttest mean scores were 8.6 ( ± 1.62) and 9.27 ( ± 1.30), with a statistically significant difference. Thirty-seven students (39.4%) did not know the answer to at least one question on the pretest, compared to seven students (7.4%) on the posttest (p < 0.001). The overall response to the game was positive: 75 (83.3%) students answered that the game helped them understand the subject matter, whereas 89 (98.9%) students affirmed that the game encouraged clinical thinking. In conclusion, the presentation of this active-learning exercise was effective, successfully aiding the learning of this important medical topic.

Keywords:

• white blood cell counts
• card game
• alternative teaching method
• medical students

Acknowledgements

We thank the monitors (demonstrators) of the Medical Immunology course, from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, for their help in applying the white blood cell game. We also would like to thank Dr Giovanni A. Salum Jr for statistical counseling.