The effects of two digital educational games on cognitive and non-cognitive math and reading outcomes

Abstract

Digital educational games play an increasingly important role in education. However, multiple questions about the effectiveness of educational games with respect to cognitive and non-cognitive effects remain unclear. The current study, a longitudinal, quasiexperiment with 336 first graders, examined the effects of two digital educational games, Number Sense Game (NSG) and Reading Game (RG). The NSG trained early numerical skills, the RG supported emergent reading. Children were pseudo-randomly assigned to either an experimental condition, comprising eight weeks of intensive gamebased training, or a control condition in which they took part in regular education without game-based practice. A pretest-posttest design was used to examine the effects of the intervention on cognitive (digit comparison, number line estimation, letter knowledge, math and reading competence) and non-cognitive outcomes (math and reading anxiety). Delayed cognitive effects on math and reading competence were also investigated two months after the intervention. Furthermore, we examined variances of the impact of the training on cognitive outcomes as a consequence of differences in children's prior knowledge, prior affect and socio-economic status. For cognitive outcomes, results revealed that children who played a game performed better on number line estimation and reading competence, whereas no significant differences were observed for digit comparison, letter knowledge and math competence. Also, children who played a game showed better scores in the delayed reading posttest, but not in the delayed math posttest. For non-cognitive outcomes, game training did not affect math or reading anxiety. Regarding individual differences, children with less prior knowledge in the game play condition performed better on the number line estimation posttest compared to children in the control condition. Children with more prior knowledge in Running head: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TWO DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL GAMES 1 the game play condition still scored better on this test compared to the control condition, but the difference between the conditions was smaller.

The effectiveness of an adaptive digital educational game for the training of early numerical abilities in terms of cognitive, noncognitive and efficiency outcomes

“…Both kinds of parameters can be estimated from participants’ responses, and placed on a common scale. Therefore data of a previous study were used and IRT‐analysis was conducted (Vanbecelaere et al , 2020). During gameplay, the Elo‐rating system was used to update the person’s ability estimates only, while the difficulty parameters were considered as constants over time.…”

Facilitation Directions in Studying Humanities by Medical Students

“…It is the game as a teaching technique that has a huge facilitating potential. The game gives excellent results in terms of improving the efficiency of learning and engagement/encouraging of students in completely different fields of knowledge [11,12,13,14]. The game gives the students a sense of freedom, the freedom of choice and decision-making, evaluation of the results of their activities.…”

Transformation of relationships between primary school stakeholders in the context of digitization

“…This paper draws on the publications about topics (3) and (5) as they appear to be the most relevant to both the theoretical and experimental frameworks used in the study. The results from international research in Australia (Neumann, 2018;Kervin, 2016), Belgium (Vanbecelaere, Berghe, Cornillie, Sasanguie, Reynvoet, & Depaepe, 2020); Finland (Kahila, Valtonen, Tedre, Mäkitalo, & Saarikoski, 2019), Hong Kong (So, Chen, & Wan, 2019), and the Netherlands (Janke, Luyten, & Visscher, 2017) should be mentioned in this context. The most significant international research practices are discussed below, before we present the Russian pedagogical experiments.…”