A mixed-methods study of the incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary and healthcare knowledge through serious game play

Study and methods

Iranian nursing students learned through Saving Lives or traditional instruction, with 80 participants in each group. Evidence included pre/post tests and questionnaire responses.

Key findings

• The game group showed significantly greater improvements in healthcare knowledge and incidental vocabulary acquisition.
• The study discusses engagement, multimodal contextual information and repeated encounters with vocabulary in gameplay.

Evidence from a specific game, nursing-education context and study design; transfer to other settings requires evaluation.

How this work can be used

Use this study when investigating content and language learning through games, designing English for specific purposes activities, or comparing game-based and conventional instruction.