Development and flow evaluation of a distance educational board game incorporating contextual learning mechanisms for children’s dental protection

This study proposes a distance educational board game Fluoride Your Dental Health, for children to learn dental protection based on the theory of caries balance concept and game-based learning mechanisms. The game encourages children to think about problem-solving and adopt correct dental protection strategies. The game is a competitive game with role-playing, points, and rounds. Through the game, learners can constantly explore and try to use the best strategies for dental care. This game was designed with the Playingcard.io platform. We explored the flow and semi-structured questionnaires of 11 elementary school students on the game and found that the children’s overall performance in the flow of the game was high, suggesting that the game could help children increase their interest and participation in learning. However, the time children spent waiting for their turn might affect the flow in educational board game.