This activity involves 20 questions surrounding different potential causes for respiratory difficulties. Learners are presented with a symptom and two potential causes. As learners correctly match the patient symptom with the most likely condition, an animated boy blows his boat towards the finish line, illustrating student progress.
The inferred learning goals are that at the end of the quiz the learner will:
Demonstrate knowledge about common respiratory conditions and their associated symptoms.
Be able to differentiate respiratory symptoms with a cardiac origin vs. a pulmonary origin.
Target Student Population:
The target audience includes college and university level students involved in studying respiratory and cardiac pathology with a goal of assessing, diagnosing, and treating respiratory conditions.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
The student should have basic knowledge of pulmonary and cardiac systems and their associated physiological problems.
Type of Material:
The learning resource is designed as drill and practice.
The learning resource is a good review of knowledge of pulmonary symptoms and their associated origins. It could be used:
In a classroom (individual or group activity) setting as a review after lecture.
In a classroom setting as a pre-test.
As a homework assignment.
As supplemental practice for test preparation.
The learning resource requires a computer connected to the Internet with a web browser using Adobe Flash animation.
Evaluation and Observation
This quiz is fun! It:
Provides a visual representation of student progress
Presents several potential causes that may be responsible for respiratory difficulties, including some from the cardiac system
The last time that the web site was updated is not visible.
There is no link to contact the author.
Determining a potential diagnosis from one presenting symptom is not best practice and may narrow the critical thinking abilities of students.
Adding more of a scenario to the presentation of the patient would improve the content quality.
When students select an incorrect answer there is no feedback offered to explain why.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Students can be motivated to learn when an element of gaming is associated with success.
Students can complete the quiz is very little time.
Learning outcomes are clearly identified.
The learning resource is easy to use.
The learning resource could be used as discussion.
Although learner receive immediate feedback regarding whether they answered the question correctly or not, they do not get any rationale for their answers. Adding this context would increase the usefulness of this tool and strengthen student learning and retention.
There is no associated glossary or links to supplemental learning resources.
The learning resource should not be used as an assessment of a learner's ability to critically think about the options.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
This learning resource is easy to use and has an intuitive design. It does not involve a large time commitment to complete.
The animated boy continues to blow throughout the quiz, not just when answers are correct. As a result, the animation loses effectiveness and becomes more of a background object instead of motivating the learner's progress.