Using digital teaching material for cancer education : A pilot study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop digital teaching material for cancer education with the aim to fulfill cancer education and implement digital textbooks. Digital teaching material for cancer learning was produced for junior high school students. The students who participated in this study were taught using this material online. Simultaneously, awareness of cancer was measured for the participating students both before and after providing the education using the online material. A total of 19 out of the 72 students who were invited participated (26.4% participation rate). Results supported the usefulness of the developed online cancer teaching material for junior high school students. The percentage of questions regarding cancer treatment that were answered correctly was high. However, there was misunderstanding regarding one question about the factors that increase risk of cancer; specifically, eating burnt food. It was confirmed that students’ understanding of cancer, such as whether cancer can be treated and whether it can be prevented, was enhanced after exposure to the digital educational material. At the same time, the ratio of participants who thought cancer was scary decreased 10 points. In future, it is desirable to expand the study, including efforts to increase the number of participants, to plan for randomized controlled trials and to measure long-term effects