Teaching Medical Students About Kawasaki Disease: The Development and Evaluation of a Digital Educational Resource

Abstract

Introduction

The use of digital educational resources has gained widespread popularity across all disciplines in medical education; pediatrics being no exception. In this paper, we report how instructional design and multimedia principles were used to develop and evaluate an e-learning resource on Kawasaki Disease, which was primarily created as a revision aid for undergraduate medical students.

Methods

The design and development of the resource was based upon the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation (ADDIE) instructional model. A “People, Activities, Contexts and Technologies” (PACT) analysis was initially undertaken to identify learners’ needs, and the 12 Principles of Multimedia Design informed the development of the resource. The evaluation strategy was informed by the Usability Evaluation Method for e-Learning Applications and focused on the instructional design parameters of navigation, visual design and intrinsic motivation to learn.

Results and Conclusion

Feedback from the seven medical students who completed and evaluated the resource showed high levels of satisfaction. Students perceived it to be beneficial to their learning and indicated a preference for an interactive digital resource over traditional modes of learning, such as textbooks. However, as this was a small-scale evaluation, suggestions for further evaluation and how this may inform ongoing development of the resource are considered in this paper.

Keywords:

• pediatric education
• digital resource
• ADDIE
• evaluation

Summary

Given the rising popularity in the use of digital learning resources in the teaching of undergraduate medical students, it is imperative that medical educators ensure that evaluation is robust and that it is given the same amount of thought and attention as the earlier stages of the instructional process. ADDIE is a useful framework that can be used to inform instructional design among novice content creators, and while some choose to take an A-to-E approach concluding with a summative evaluation, the benefits of taking an iterative approach with regular formative evaluation has been well documented in the literature.³⁵ Carrying out a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis on specific components of evaluation that are pertinent to the resource may be effective, while utilizing established evaluation instruments such as LORI to evaluate the technological aspects of the resource including content quality, presentation design and usability may ensure quality control.¹³

Ethics Approval and Informed Consent

Ethical approval was not required as the evaluation of the digital resource was an audit and formed part of the resource development and not a formal research study. No personal data were collected.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work. However, to maintain the continuity and integrity of the scientific record and to provide readers with a complete picture of the progress and evolution of the work, we would like to declare that the work is linked to a preprint of our research protocol in medRxiv.³⁷