Design matters: explorations of content and design in fraction games

Autor: Abbey M. Loehr, Isaac Thomas Nichols, Bethany Rittle-Johnson, Melissa Gresalfi
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Educational Technology Research and Development. 66:579-596
ISSN: 1556-6501
1042-1629
Popis: The goal of the current study was to contribute to our emergent understanding of whether and how particular types of digital games can support student learning and engagement. We focused on commercially available educational apps that focused on similar content (fraction comparison and equivalence) but represented extremes in how game-like they were (games vs. worksheets). Third-grade students (n = 95) worked on the apps for an hour in their math classrooms. Students preformed equally well on a paper-and-pencil assessment, but students’ enjoyment of the games was significantly higher. Student interviews indicated that students who played the games noticed the mathematics content in the games, sometimes linking it to the game mechanics, noticed the relevance of the game for the assessment and talked about enjoying the games. Findings suggest that exploratory games that implicitly support mathematics knowledge can improve students’ math knowledge outside of the game context and improve student engagement.
Databáze: OpenAIRE