Learning First Aid with a Video Game

Abstract

Any citizen can be involved in a situation that requires basic first aid knowledge. For this reason, it is important to be trained in this kind of activity. Serious games have been presented as a good option to integrate entertainment into the coaching process. This work presents a video game for mobile platforms which facilitate the formation and training in the PWA (Protect, Warn, Aid) first aid protocol. Users have to overcome a series of challenges to bring theoretical concepts closer to practice. To easily change the point of view of the game play, Augmented Reality technology has been used. In order to make each game looks different, neural networks have been implemented to perform the behavior of the Non-Playable Characters autonomous. Finally, in order to evaluate the quality and playability of the application, as well as the motivation and learning of content, several experiments were carried out with a sample of 50 people aged between 18 and 26. The obtained results confirm the playability and attractiveness of the video game, the increase of interest in learning first aid, as well as the greater fixation of the different concepts dealt with in the video game. The results support that this application facilitates and improves the learning of first aid protocols, making it more enjoyable, attractive, and practical.

Keywords

• first aid
• video games
• serious games
• education
• augmented reality
• artificial intelligence