Comment on “Students’ perceptions of Toxicolitaire^TM– a digital card game for medical toxicology students”

Dear Editor,

We read the paper by Marks and colleagues [1] with great interest. This innovative approach to enhance accessibility and engagement with toxicology education through gamification is to be applauded. Utilizing a multi-modal approach to medical education, such as combining asynchronous digital resources, i.e., toxicology educational software, with traditional teaching methods, such as lecture and small group formats, allows educators to customize lessons to the needs of their individual learners [2]. By leveraging the power of gamification through the deliberate incorporation of entertaining puzzles and problem-solving elements, the authors have not only increased accessibility but also fostered higher levels of engagement [3]. This work joins existing gamified education materials specific to toxicological education, such as the Toxiscape Hunt [4], further enriching the educational resources available to medical toxicology learners.

The results from the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Toxicolitaire^TM game are consistent with the goals of gamified medical education. Notably, the thematic analysis of students’ comments highlights the effectiveness of Toxicolitaire^TM in promoting active learning strategies and facilitating self-directed targeting of knowledge gaps. The anecdotes shared by students, detailing how they adapted their problem-solving approaches in real-time during gameplay, underscore the ability of the game to inspire learners and foster meaningful learning experiences. This insight is valuable as the comments imply the students adapt self-directed learning in response to real-time self-assessment.

Recent advancements in software development tools have significantly contributed to the feasibility and scalability of gamified educational solutions. For example, integrated development environments, such as Unity, Microsoft Visual Studio, Visionaire Studio, and Godot, allow rapid prototyping and creation of immersive scenarios and puzzles in a virtual environment. Many of these are free or low-cost for educators. Moreover, these integrated development environments are easy to learn and use, and there are many free online videos which teach basic and advanced software development. The accessibility of integrated development environments is a resource for toxicologists who wish to develop additional toxicology educational software.

The digitization of physical educational resources, including board games, card games, artifacts, and puzzles, into a video game format increases accessibility and wider dissemination of educational content. As toxicology educators continue to explore gamified curricula and leverage asynchronously available software, we anticipate the increasing emergence of novel modalities such as virtual escape rooms, extended reality patient encounters, video games, and mobile applications [5]. These developments hold promise for enriching the educational experiences of learners and improving their preparedness for clinical practice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.