Abstract
The development and adaptation of simulation and games in corporate training and learning is a modern tendency that is based on the fact that such tools are effective to make learners develop their skills and apply knowledge to real-life situations. Today, simulations and games are also actively used in the field of health care administration in order to save the costs and time associated with long-term training sessions. The learning and training sessions on health care ethics are often time-consuming, and the contemporary approach is important to organize the instruction effectively. To guarantee the positive results of the staff’s training regarding the health care ethics and decision-making, it is necessary to utilize technologies in learning and training sessions, and the development of the detailed instructional design plan is an important stage of the process.
Instructional Design Plan: Part I
The development and adaptation of simulation and games in corporate training and learning is a modern tendency that is based on the fact that such tools are effective to make learners develop their skills and apply knowledge to the real-life situations (Bozarth, 2010; Kapp, 2012, p. 180). Today, simulations and games are also actively used in the field of health care administration to save the costs and time associated with long-term training sessions. In health care administration, there is a variety of issues and topics that can be learned with the help of simulations and games. These topics include ethics, health care delivery, law, and human resources issues among many others. The learning and training sessions on health care ethics are often time-consuming, and the contemporary approach is important to organize the instruction effectively. In order to guarantee the positive results of the staff’s training regarding the health care ethics and decision-making, it is necessary to utilize technologies in learning and training sessions, and the development of the detailed instructional design plan is an important stage of the process.
Analyze
Needs Assessment
Ethics is a significant and challenging aspect in the area of health care that needs to be addressed in the majority of situations occurring in facilities’ settings. However, the problem is in the fact that there is a variety of ethical situations that can be faced by professionals every day, and they need to know how to act in this or that situation and make appropriate ethical decisions. The lack of time and resources is often a barrier to provide health care professionals with effective training that includes not only theoretical material but also a range of practical exercises. Being trained on health care ethics with the help of technologies, the staff receives the opportunity to organize the theoretical knowledge and effectively apply it to real-life situations.
Currently, health care providers spend a lot of time on ethical training, but their knowledge is mainly theoretical. As a result, the learned information and strategies to make ethical decisions often do not work in practice, and professionals need to consult the codes of ethics and guidelines several times to formulate the decision. It is preferably that health care providers spend less time making effective ethical decisions because of their developed skills in applying the theoretical knowledge on rules and guidelines to real-life situations. It is important to overcome this gap in the ethics training in the sphere of health care to make the facilities’ environments more ethical.
The proposed training plan aims to address the situation of the gap between learning the theoretical aspects of health care ethics and their application to practice. If the training plan is implemented successfully, it is possible to expect the development of professionals’ skills in making ethical decisions to save time and resources that are necessary for the analysis of individual cases.
Goal
To expect higher results after the completion of the training session in which the game is used, it is necessary to formulate the concrete outcome instead of a possible goal. The outcome of the proposed instructional plan is the following one: Health care professionals will properly utilize their knowledge of health care ethics while addressing ethical dilemmas and making ethical decisions during their everyday working activities.
Target Audience
The learners who need to participate in the proposed training are rather diverse. Training in health care ethics is necessary for representatives of different positions associated with administrative tasks and the actual provision of health care services. Therefore, it is expected to address the needs of the male and female staff aged 24-64. Much attention should be paid to the fact that the majority of the staff is females; the average age is 43 years, and the educational background is different. However, it is important to state that the training should be provided to nurse administrators and practitioners as well as to managers and physicians.
The learning styles of this large diverse group of health care providers are also different, depending on their age and experience (Wilson et al., 2009, p. 218). The determined target audience has the basic knowledge in the discussed area of health care ethics that is necessary to perform their daily professional duties. The majority of the staff has developed computer skills, and they are interested in using new technologies, but they are mostly traditional learners, and it is important to address this obstacle while proposing the effective game or simulation to achieve expected results (Bedwell, Pavlas, Heyne, Lazzara, & Salas, 2012). The target audience has a medium level of motivation and expects that the training will be captivating to improve their practical skills in the area. Moreover, there should be a focus on possible rewards. At the current stage, only the basic guideline on the game’s rules and specifics is necessary, if the technological platform of the game allows training with the focus on only few clicks made by learners during the learning process (Moreno-Ger, Burgos, & Torrente, 2009, p. 670). Much attention should be paid to the form in which information and scenarios will be presented in order to make the game interesting and rewarding, but simple, because of the audience’s different learning styles, motivation, and computer skills.
Design
Objectives
The instructional objectives correlated with the outcome of the proposed training plan are the following ones:
- By the end of the game, the learners will be able to properly evaluate the ethical situation depending on different real-life scenarios.
- By the end of the game, the learners will be able to apply their knowledge on ethical standards, rules, and norms to resolving ethical issues while making ethically correct decisions nine times out of ten.
- By the end of the game, the learners will be able to use their skills and knowledge to appropriately defend their ethical decisions in all cases, including ethical dilemmas.
Assessment
It is possible to evaluate the achievement of learners while implementing a set of assessment procedures at the end of the training sessions to conclude about the learners’ successes. The assessment should demonstrate that upon the completion of the training session, the learners can take various roles to make relevant ethical decisions depending on the knowledge acquired during the training sessions and on skills developed as a result of the game (Moreno-Ger et al., 2009). While evaluating the learners’ achievements, it is important to compare their results with the previously set outcome in order to determine the areas in which health care providers do not demonstrate progress.
The assessment tools that are necessary to evaluate the progress are developed to be correlated with the set objectives. The declarative knowledge can be assessed with the help of case studies proposed after the completion of training sessions to evaluate the learners’ understanding of specific concepts and differences in ethical situations (Kapp, 2012). Case studies as the assessment tool can be used to assess the completion of the first objective. The procedural knowledge should be assessed with the help of the frequency record that is used in order to state what the frequency of an employee’s appropriate application of learned ethical standards, rules, and norms is (Bedwell et al., 2012). This approach to assessing the achievements is correlated with the second objective of the training plan. The problem-solving knowledge can be assessed with the help of checklists developed to fix learners’ successes in their defending ethical decisions made in relation to different real-life situations. Appropriateness of strategies used by the learners to resolve the ethical problem can be evaluated with references to the determined set of criteria.
Conclusion
The first stage in developing the instructional design plan includes the focus on assessing the learners’ needs, determining the goal, and discussing the target audience. The second stage is based on formulating specific and measurable objectives that need to be completed by learners. This stage also includes the choice of assessment tools that are effective enough to evaluate the learners’ progress in obtaining the knowledge in the sphere of health care ethics and developing the required skills. The effective assessment of the results is important to discuss the efficiency of the game as an instrument for training learners.
References
Bedwell, W. L., Pavlas, D., Heyne, K., Lazzara, E. H., & Salas, E. (2012). Toward a taxonomy linking game attributes to learning: An empirical study. Simulation & Gaming, 43(6), 729-760.
Bozarth, J. (2010). Social media for trainers: Techniques for enhancing and extending learning. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: Game-based methods and strategies for training and education. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Moreno-Ger, P., Burgos, D., & Torrente, J. (2009). Digital games in eLearning environments: Current uses and emerging trends. Simulation & Gaming, 40(5), 669-687.
Wilson, K. A., Bedwell, W. L., Lazzara, E. H., Salas, E., Burke, C. S., Estock, J., … Conkey, C. (2009). Relationships between game attributes and learning outcomes: Review and research proposals. Simulation & Gaming, 40(1), 217-266.