AUHS Nursing Students Plays Board Game to Study for Finals

“When we have clinical makeups, one of the things that we do for our students is provide them different modalities of learning,” said Flores, “Instead of just incorporating your traditional powerpoints and DVDs, this board game will help students review for their final.”

The NCLEX Examination Review Game was a “nationally recognized game” and had 800 clinical questions that would be similar to what will be on final exam, according to Flores. The board game could also help students prepare for the NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) because it covers the 4 major areas of the exam: safe and effective environment, psychosocial integrity, health promotion and maintenance, and physiological integrity. The board game also incorporates helpful test-taking tips.

“These questions are tough. They are not easy and they are very much NCLEX style. This tends to be the best game for really learning how to answer questions on the NCLEX exam, which is so important for our students,” said Flores.

Flores gives students an opportunity to play this game once every term. She said playing the NCLEX Examination Review Game is beneficial for her students because when people study in groups, they retain 70% of the information. If there is a teacher, (or someone that who knows the correct answers and could explain the rationale for the questions), people retain 90% of the information, according to Flores.

Flores also gave her students a chance to make up for any missing clinical hours by playing this board game. Her students played the NCLEX Examination Review Game for 3 hours. AUHS nursing student Emmanuelle De Castro from Cohort 19 enjoyed the activity and felt it helped her greatly in her review for the final exam.

“It’s a fun way to review the final. The rationales of some of the answers that we answered incorrectly helps us a lot,” said De Castro, “(The game) goes over what we learned (in class) like how nursing priority is how we should address the questions.”

De Castro often studies on her own by watching videos on YouTube and reading the assigned textbooks. But once she understands the subject on her own, she would find a study group to better enhance her review. She recommends this game to AUHS students who are close to their cohort because “it’s a really fun and helpful way to review with friends.”

AUHS nursing student Reggie Del Rosario from Cohort 19 was in the same class as De Castro. It was Del Rosario’s first time playing a game related to nursing.

“We’re having fun and we’re learning at the same time so it’s actually going to stick for me,” Del Rosario said, “It’s really reinforcing what we had been already learning.”

Del Rosario enjoyed playing the NCLEX Examination Review Game so much that he and some of his peers are thinking of buying the game for themselves.

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