Acceptability of the Hall Technique to parents and children.

Objective: To investigate the acceptability of stainless steel crowns placed by dental therapists on children's primary molars using the Hall Technique. Design: Mixed methods approach, using qualitative inductive analysis and quantitative analysis. Setting: Hawke's Bay Community Oral Health Service Methods: One focus group was conducted and ten thirty-minute phone interviews were undertaken with parents of children who had previously had a stainless steel crown placed using the Hall Technique (over the period 1 December 2011 to 31 May 2012). An inductive approach was used to analyse the qualitative research data, and the information was arranged into several categories based on the key themes which arose. Children treated with the Hall Technique were asked immediately after treatment whether they had enjoyed their visit to the clinic that day. Results: Common themes were found with regard to appearance, pain, the procedure, and general opinions on acceptability. Nearly all (90%) of the children responded positively about their visit to the clinic. Conclusion: There was a high degree of acceptance among both parents and children for stainless steel crown placement using the Hall Technique in this group

Strategies for Effective Digital Games Development and Implementation

Digital technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, sharing, and the way in which learning is being undertaken. This chapter considers how Serious Games (SGs) as a digital technology endeavours to support effective lifelong learning. Three fundamental characteristics of the SG ecosystem, namely, game mechanics, interoperability, and assessment, are considered here as strategic elements that impact upon how SGs are to support learning, how they affect the learning environment, and ultimately, the SG development process. A prospective deconstruction of SGs into its pedagogical elements and its game mechanic nodes is presented to make aware the interoperability modus from which topical (domain) frameworks or architectures can be structured and assessed. To this end, the chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings through a case study on the eAdventure platform and argues that the key elements form the foundation for strategic development and implementation of SGs

Beyond the technological dimension of edutainment : an evaluation framework with a curricular perspective

In this chapter, the authors propose a framework for carrying out an analysis of edutainment products from a curricular perspective. Although this framework has been developed for undertaking a curricular evaluation of edutainment, the chapter also incorporates some indicators that allow for evaluation of its playful dimension. Firstly, the different fields of research that support the framework are presented, such as the studies on: commercial video games, serious games and edutainment, and curricular materials (e.g. textbooks). This framework comprises four dimensions of analysis − formal, playful, curricular, and ethical − organized as an observation grid of edutainment products and a series of guidelines to use it. In each dimension the authors take into account a variable number of units of analysis, indicators, and evidences. Finally, the chapter offers some general conclusions to the evaluation process of edutainment, focusing on its appropriateness to specific curricular subjects and contexts.(undefined