Conference ICL2010
September 15 -17, 2010 Hasselt, Belgium
Educational Games in formal education – Results of an
explorative study using an Educational Game in school
Johannes Zylka1, Hans Peter Nutzinger2
1
University of Education Weingarten, 2Junior High School Meckenbeuren
Key words: Educational Games, Serious Games, formal education
Abstract:
This article investigates the application of Educational Games in formal education. In
it, we provide background on the actual status of the application of educational games
in formal education, as well as information on problems and chances of the use of
Educational Games in classrooms on the basis of first findings of an explorative
applied study in a German junior high school. To allow a multidimensional view on
the hereby presented topic, we discuss the questionnaire offered to the students and
the teacher’s point of view as well as the pedagogical background of the game Ice Ice
Maybe.
1 Introduction
In comparison to international approaches, the German discussion on Educational Games and
Serious Games is some years behind, since these topics nearly have not been discussed and,
therefore, have not been recognized as a good and useful way to inspire pupils not only at
home, but also in terms of formal education. These developments unfortunately lead to a
generally very low importance of Educational and Serious Games in German society, and
especially in terms of formal education [1].
Looking on international approaches, one can say that gaming did get implicated in education
over the last years [2], at least on a very pragmatic level that normally does not implicate
special educational concepts or forms of classroom management in terms of formal education
[3]. That is, because the use of games in general and especially of Educational and Serious
Games is still a topic far off most teacher’s reality [4]. Problems using these games in formal
education begin in the computer and media literacy of teachers, which actually cannot be seen
as adequate [5], and end in the infrastructure of education facilities that may cause problems
[6]. This seems to be a very unfortunate situation, since most children live in a mediated
world, what implicates gaming in different ways like on computers, handheld consoles or
mobile phones.
However, Educational Games that name to educate, have to face different demands. They
have to be educational well founded on a theoretical level, they should be easy to handle for
teachers and students, they should be cheap because most schools cannot spend much money
on games, as well as they have to comply with standards of the gaming industry. But even if
an Educational Game complies with these needs, does the use in classroom make sense? Can
it really improve learning? What do pupils think about the games, they are confronted with?
And what is the teacher's point of view after the hereby presented study?
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2 Educational Games in formal education
Games, computer games as well as board games, often were seen as fun-producing free-time
activities over the past decades. Especially computer-based games which seemed to be an
activity for a small amount of computer players, got integrated more and more in societies,
what leads to different developments in the area of computer-based gaming. For instance,
more and more people say that they are playing computer games. In the United States this
number increased to 50% in the year 2006 [7], and the average age of gamers did reach 35
years [8]. In terms of these developments, especially so called social games, which are based
on social networks such as facebook, boomed over the last years.
Unfortunately, most teachers cannot be seen as game literate, since 40% of the European
teachers are aged over 50 and just a very small amount of teachers is younger than 30 years
[9] and, therefore, have been in contact with Educational Games. This might be one reason for
the lack of integration of Educational Games in formal education, another aspect might be the
missing integration of game-related content into teacher studies [10], but this pictured agedependent gap is, at least in our opinion, the most important reason, why games actually do
not find their way into formal education, especially in the European countries with a higher
average age of teachers.
Therefore, just a small amount of teachers or students that will become teachers get directly
confronted with games and Game-based Learning (GbL). Based on these facts, it is not
astonishing that Educational Games actually play a very small role in terms of formal
education, especially in schools, although they boom worldwide [11] Thus, we decided to run
an Educational Game in a junior high school in Germany, in a seventh and a ninth grade, to
analyse appearing problems and advantages, to find out, whether the expressed reservation
against GbL can be seen as legitimate in terms of the use in schools, or if most of the
reservation is to be seen baseless. For this purpose, we decided to use the Educational Game
Ice Ice Maybe, which can be downloaded for free from the publisher’s website [12].
3 Running the Educational Game Ice Ice Maybe
When using an Educational Game in context of formal education, one of the essential parts of
an analysis is the pedagogical foundation of the described game. Thus, we decided to use the
standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, because these standards are
worked out as international valid standards of mathematical school education [13]. Before
naming the respective standards, the analysed game should be described in short.
3.1 Presenting Ice Ice Maybe
The Educational Game Ice Ice Maybe is a browser-based mathematical micro game, where
pupils train their estimation abilities by fast calculations. Students have to perform arithmetic
operations, such as addition, subtraction, division and calculating with percentages, in terms
of different levels. At the end of each level, a result is shown, what leads to the possibility of
comparing results between the respective pupils. Especially interesting for teachers is the
opportunity to have a look at a summarization and visualization of the pupil’s results in terms
of a statistical overview.
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At least, one can say that the structure of the game is quite simple, what is a positive aspect in
this context, because the game is easy to understand and pupils ought to have fun playing it
from the beginning. Especially this point is a known problem of Games and in particular of
Educational Games [14], though children lose their attention when games need lots of effort
in the beginning.
Fig. 1: Screenshot Ice Ice Maybe
In our study, most pupils nearly needed no support from the teacher at all. Even if
publications say that this possibly is a problem of Educational Games [15], in our case it is
worth mentioning from a pragmatic point of view that the presented game offers a good
usability and a simple structure for the audience.
3.2 Pedagogical background: The NCTM standards
In terms of applying an Educational Game in classroom, just a good usability and simple
game structure do not fulfil all requirements. One very important additional aspect is the
pedagogic foundation of the analysed game. Thus, in this article, we focused the NCTM
standards of the American National Council of teachers of mathematics, because these
standards can be seen as internationally valid [16]. Similar accordance could be found in the
German mathematical curricula.
The educational game Ice Ice Maybe promotes several claims of the NCTM-standards.
Among others, these standards contain the topics Numbers and Operations and Algebra,
which clearly can benefit from the game Ice Ice Maybe. As is drafted in these standards,
pupils should learn to "compute fluently and (...) perform mental calculations" [17] as well as
they should "represent and analyse mathematical situations and structures" [18]. In terms of
these standards, it is in particular the field Number and Operations that obviously and indeed
mostly benefits from playing along.
The following table shows the standards, that accord to Ice Ice Maybe and the specific
situation of the implementation, especially to the seventh and ninth grade.
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7th grade
Students
should...
9th grade
…compare and order fractions, decimals,
and percents efficiently and find their
approximate location on a number line.
…develop fluency in operations
with real numbers […] using
mental computation […].
…understand the meaning and effects of
arithmetic operations with fractions,
decimals, and integers.
…judge the reasonableness of
numerical computations and their
results.
…select appropriate methods and tools for
computing with fractions […] from among
mental computation, estimation […].
…develop and use strategies to estimate the
results of rational-number computation and
judge the reasonableness of the results.
Table 1: Foundation of Ice Ice Maybe in the NCTM Standards
On the basis of this table, it seems obvious that the use of the game is pedagogical fitting in
both grades, although the use in a 7th grade clearly covers more fields of the NCTM
Standards, which were cited at this point.
Now, after providing some basic information on the analysed game and its foundation in the
curricula, the results of the explorative study will be discussed. To enable a good traceability
of the hereby presented study, some methodological background will first be given, followed
by the results of our study.
4 First evidence on the application of an educational game in
formal education
During summer 2010, the Educational Game Ice Ice Maybe was applied in two different
classes in a German junior high school, a 7th grade (N=26) and a 9th grade (N=30). The classes
were chosen by the participating teacher without specific background: He was the subject’s
teacher in these two classes, thus, no specific choice did take place. The teacher named the
level of the classes as averaged.
We had to decide, whether to use the software during regular lessons or to use more time in
context of a project-based approach, such as a project day. Even though a project day would
clearly offer lots of advantages, such as additional time for an introduction or a result
protection, we decided to use it in terms of regular lessons, to see whether an application in
this context really makes sense. Thus, the game was implemented on two afternoons within
two school lessons, so each of the fixed dates lasted 90 minutes.
The lessons were planned and accomplished without any specific method of teaching. After
giving the pupils their computer accounts, they were not briefed by the teacher, so they had to
get known to the game in an explorative way.
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We developed a questionnaire especially for this purpose, which consists out of 18 items. This
questionnaire was adopted following the use of the games in class and, therefore, the children
were asked to fill the questionnaire out at home up to the next lesson and give it back to their
teacher in it. It was ensured to them that their answers have no effect on their grades.
Fig. 2: Participating pupils during Game-based Learning
At this point, we will name central results of the application of this Educational Game in two
classes in a junior high school. Of course, in context of this article, we can just present a
selection of the most important results; a very extensive formulation cannot be implicated.
4.1 Quantitative Results of running Ice Ice Maybe in school
First, the used questionnaire asked for some socio demographic data. Because of the
methodological design of the study, one may think that the age of the probands is 13 years for
the 7th grade and 15 years for the participating pupils. The results show that this is just
partially true (M=14.14, SD=1.17, MIN=12, MAX=17). Nearly 43% of the probands were
male, 57% female.
Furthermore, the questionnaire asked some questions on daily computer and Internet use. The
mean of the time, the pupils spend on a computer, is slightly above 2 hours per day (M=2.11,
SD=1.45, MIN=0.00, MAX=6.00), while they surf nearly all the time in the Internet, when
they use a computer (M=2.04, SD=1.52, MIN=0.00, MAX=7.00). A possible explanation for
the higher time that is spend in the Internet compared to the lower time sitting on a computer
might be the use of an Internet-connected mobile phone or of a game console. Therefore, the
time pupils are using their computer per day highly correlates with the time they use the
internet (t=0.863, p=0.000), which on the other hand influences the time pupils use a console
(t=0.365, p<0.001).
After analysing the GbL-relating data, one can say that 44 out of 56 pupils liked the game, at
least found it positive (M=1.21, SD=1.07). Nearly two third of the pupils (M=0.62, SD=0.82)
say that they have used an Educational Game at least for once before, slightly more than half
of them have used an Educational Game in terms of lessons (M=0.57, SD=0.78). Most of the
pupils did understand the game very well (M=2.41, SD=1.13, MIN=-2, MAX=3), and they
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liked the game more, if they understood it fast (t=0.408, p=0.002). A big part of the probands
wants the teacher to use similar educational games in context of the lessons (M=1.96,
SD=1.39, MIN=-2, MAX=3), what highly correlates on the time they needed to understand
how to play the game (t=0.557, p=0.000).
While nearly every tenth pupil (M=0.13, SD=0.38) mentions to have leastwise once played
Ice Ice Maybe during a break after the use in class, more than two third (M=0.68, SD=0.76)
say that they have played the game at least once at home in their free time even though the
teacher did not explicitly tell the pupils to do this. Therefore, it is not very surprising that
there is a vast correlation between the favour of the pupils and the tendency to voluntarily
play the game at home (t=0.37, p<0.01), as well as pupils especially liked the game, if they
understood it fast (t=0.41, p<0.01). The pupils who liked the game also wanted their teachers
to let them play more of these games (t=0.43, p=0.001), which leads to the fact that pupils
who actually played the game at home want these games to be used as a tool for teaching
more often (t=0.280, p=0.037).
Fig. 3: Results from the analysis
The gender-specific analysis offers two interesting aspects on the one hand. Thus, male
probands (M=2.27, SD=1.88) generally spend a lot more time on the computer, than girls do
(M=1.99, SD=1.05), what has to be designated as significant (t=2.27, p<0.05). Furthermore,
boys (M=0.92, SD=0.991) significantly mention more often – compared to girls – to have
played Ice Ice Maybe at home in their free time (t=2.08, p<0.05). On the other hand, one
could have expected a lot more significant results because of the general tendency that mostly
males like and play computer games [19].
At this point one may ask, whether the age-specific comparison may offer interesting results.
Indeed, older pupils surf a lot more in the world wide web (t=2.16, p<0.36), but have
considerably fewer experience with the use of Educational Games in school (t=-2.50,
p=0.015) and significantly fewer older students like the game (t=-2.05, p<0.05).
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Two other interesting points shall be mentioned at this point. The first aspect is the fact that
nearly none of the probands had problems in understanding the language (M=1.59, SD=1.17,
MIN=-1, MAX=3), although their teacher named the pupils English language level as
substandard. This statement from the teacher can be supported by the mean of the grades
(M=3.14, SD=0.75). The second aspect is the high number of older pupils out of 9th grade,
who were significant less confronted with educational Games and GbL during their time in
school (t=-0.310, p<0.05).
In context of this article, we asked the teacher, to give us some information on his perception
of the application of Ice Ice Maybe in regular lessons. Therefore, this following chapter can
be understood as a qualitative supplementation of the named quantitative analysis.
4.2
Qualitative results of running Ice Ice Maybe in school:
The teachers’ point of view
One of the points that the teacher, who is aged in the early 30's, has named to be the most
important, was that he himself did not just see computer games as a playing experience of his
free time, but also as teaching and learning aids. Because of this experience, he found it
interesting to participate in this study and, in the end, found his attitude towards the
usefulness of GbL approved.
To clarify the standard situation in schools, he amended that usually, nearly every pupil owns
at least basic computer-related competencies, while in most cases, the respective teachers do
not. This gap leads to the teacher person's fear that the pupils might be better computer users
and that the respective teacher might embarrass themselves, what leads to actual
developments, such as the missing computer use in class. This view gets supported – among
others – by the European Commission [20]. Another mentioned point is that the computerrelated equipment, even if it reached the goal set by European commission of a pupilcomputer relation of 15 to 1 [21], is by far not adequate for a meaningful application of
computers in classes. This especially leads to problems in GbL, because these games regularly
are single-player games and cannot be played in multiplayer mode.
On the use of Ice Ice Maybe, he distinguished that he was surprised by the fast understanding
of the game. The pupils nearly had no problems to use it, although the game's language is
English and the pupil's formal English level was slightly below standard. The pupils of
seventh grade seemed to be a lot more motivated all over the time, the 9th grade was
motivated by competitions that the pupils commenced without influence of the teacher. Thus,
the pupils of the 9th grade looked very often at the ranking list, while none of the pupils of the
7th grade searched for the ranking. When using a premium account the teacher gets a
comfortable account administration with lots of web based statistics, containing information
about which student was online how long, what high score the pupils have achieved and
comparisons between the individual students themselves. Unfortunately, these reports were
mostly useless in our case, because two students of the 9th class have discovered a way to
cheat as they were playing at home. Thus, they achieved extremely high scores, which made a
comparison of the statistics difficult.
Even if this was not an intended way of using the game, it emphasized that lots of pupils did
actually play the game at home in their free time. Looking at this, the teacher told us that this
might be a potential that could be very important in terms of mathematical education, since
lots of nowadays pupils have huge problems concerning mathematical knowledge and
experience.
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Therefore, the teacher's made his opinion on the use of this game in formal education clear by
saying that it has a huge potential to boost the student's motivational level in mathematical
education, what represents a big problem in junior high school. Furthermore, it seems to be
applicable to let pupils exercise some estimation-related tasks.
5 Discussion of the results
The results of this study showed focused different aspects of GbL in schools. The results of
the questionnaire made clear that most pupils had nearly no problems understanding the game
and especially the language, although they performed slightly substandard in regular class
exercises. This might be an interesting topic when talking on interdisciplinary lessons, or in
terms of language learning.
The participating students showed a high motivation of playing the game not only in class, but
also at home. Now, that GbL pushes the motivational level is not all that matters, different
studies showed this already [22]. But remembering at this point that around the half of the
pupils did play the game in their free time and, therefore, pedagogically spoken tried to
educate and strengthen their mathematical abilities in their free time, this is a very
considerable aspect of GbL that should be implicated in further discussions.
The results of the questionnaire as well as the comments of the interviewed teacher showed
that the actual situation of the integration of new media, especially Game-based Learning in
school has to be focused. Most of today's pupils use new media and games in a very extensive
way in private – no question that the known lessons must appear like a very uninteresting
aspect of life. Of course, the point of applying Educational Games such as Ice Ice Maybe in
context of formal education cannot be to replace the traditional way of teaching, but they
offer specific advantages that bring pupils closer to topics they are not interested in, such as
mathematic-specific education. For instance, the role of females in mathematical and
technical fields was intensively discussed over the last years on very different levels [23] and
showed that male pupils and students perform better than females. Within this small study, the
only real differences that could be found were on the one hand that male pupils generally use
the computer more often and that more male pupils mention to have played Ice Ice Maybe in
their free time. Thus, the use of GbL might be a useful way of bringing females to an equal
status of technical and mathematical education.
Therefore, this game that can be used for free might be a useful and pedagogical well founded
extension to normal lessons. Other Educational Games, such as Pyramid Panic or Algebra
Meltdown that have been developed by the same publisher, can be accessed for free, too, and
actually offer gaming fun for different mathematic-related topics.
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6 Conclusion and future work
With the presented explorative study, the named results from the questionnaire as well as the
amendments from the teacher we have cooperated with, should be understood as a first small
step towards the integration of games in the educational systems in terms of the application in
high schools. Of course, Educational Games are not supposed to be used throughout all
classes and all topics, but, and that’s one of the essential facts of this study, they can be a very
meaningful addition to known lesson contents.
It was shown that good Educational Games cannot just raise student’s motivation to an
unforeseen high level, but also can make sense from a pedagogical point of view. Therefore,
an often named argument against the use of GbL, this kind of games would just offer fun and
no really reasonable content, could be shown as wrong. The idea that the lack of integration of
Game-based Learning in formal education mostly depends on the missing understanding of
teachers and the general lack of realisation and implementation of new media in most of the
educational sector as well as the missing foundation in teacher studies [24], still remains. But
of course, more and at least more extensive studies have to be applied in this context, what
hopefully will cause further development of this, in our opinion, meaningful and essential
topic for future learning and educational scenarios [25].
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Authors:
Zylka, Johannes
University of Education Weingarten
Media Education and Visualisation Group
Leibnizstraße 3, 88250 Weingarten
[email protected]
Nutzinger, Hans Peter
Junior High School Meckenbeuren
Theodor-Heuss Platz 6, 88074 Meckenbeuren
[email protected]
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