Primary children's attitudes towards electronic games and effect of electronic games on primary children's mathematics learning
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: measures analysis was employed to explore mathematics performance and attitude differences within groups at three time points.A sample of 17 students was randomly assigned to treatment and control groups.In the first three weeks, the mobile phone game group children played a mobile phone game for fifteen minutes in the classroom daily and the other group of children acted as no-treatment controls.For the next three weeks, all children played the mobile phone game for fifteen minutes every weekday.Mathematics performance data were collected at the start, after three weeks and at the end of the study.In addition, interviews were conducted with the students and the class teacher to provide extra data to help explain the results of the quantitative data.The findings provide evidence to show a positive effect in speed of computation and percentage accuracy rate after playing a mobile phone game in a longer 6-week period.No significant difference was found in mathematics attitude after playing the mobile phone game.The final study attempted to address one of the weaknesses of much research in the area of game based learning: the fact that many studies use no-treatment controls.Fifteen Primary 3 students were divided into two groups by stratified random assignment.Both groups were involved in learning the same mathematics processes.They used either a technology-based online electronic game or a paper-based card game for 4 weeks and then swapped conditions for another 4 weeks.The methods used were similar to the mobile phone game study, a pre-post design measuring performance and attitudes together with in-field observation to provide extra information when interpreting the results of the quantitative data.Results from this study were somewhat mixed: it was found that the online electronic game positively impacted on children's mathematics vi attitude.The improvement in children's mathematics performance from the card game was significant.In contrast, no significant gains were found in students' mathematics performance after online flash game playing.When a between-group analysis was conducted, there was no significant difference between the two conditions.The overall results provide some evidence that electronic games can be an effective learning tool to improve primary school children's mathematics skills and mathematics attitudes.However not all the findings supported the use of electronic games, although some aspects of the methodology could have influenced the findings, such as small sample size, short intervention times and problems with treatment fidelity.There are implications for teachers and for future research into game-based learning.
Author: Ming Chen
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W835415007