Math Game More Effective Than Paper Exercises

July 8, 2013 — To measure the effectiveness of
Monkey Tales, a study was carried out with 88
second grade pupils divided into three groups.
One group was asked to play the game for a
period of three weeks while the second group
had to solve similar math exercises on paper
and a third group received no assignment. The
math performance of the children was
measured using an electronic arithmetic test
before and after the test period. When results
were compared, the children who had played
the game provided significantly more correct
answers: 6% more than before, compared to
only 4% for the group that made traditional
exercises and 2% for the control group. In
addition, both the group that played the game
and that which did the exercises were able to
solve the test 30% faster while the group
without assignment was only 10% faster.
The quality of experience was also measured
and showed that pupils found Monkey Tales
more enjoyable (which was confirmed by a
parent survey), that the game was described as
being 'fun', 'exciting' and 'fantastic' up to 80%
more often than the paper exercises, and that
60% of the children wished to play more, while
only 39% wished to solve additional exercises.
Broadly speaking, it can be concluded that the
game showed better results both in terms of
motivation and learning efficiency. Further
research should reveal how these additional
learning outcomes are achieved by the game.
Possible reasons are the continuous feedback
players receive during gameplay, that the game
is more motivating, that it adjusts the difficulty
level to the player or -- more generally -- that
it trains additional cognitive skills such as
working memory and attention.

Serious games
Serious or educational games are becoming
increasingly important. Market research
company iDate estimates that the global
turnover was €2.3 billion in 2012 and expects
it to rise to €6.6 billion in 2015. A first
important sector in which serious games are
being used, is defence. The U.S. Army, for
example, uses games to attract recruits and to
teach various skills, from tactical combat
training to ways of communicating with local
people. Serious games are also increasingly
used in companies and organizations to train
staff. The Flemish company U&I Learning, for
example, developed games for Audi in Vorst to
teach personnel the safety instructions, for
Carrefour to teach student employees how to
operate the check-out system and for DHL to
optimise the loading and unloading of air
freight containers.

Games in education

The interest in serious games is also growing in
education. The underlying idea is that children
often have to acquire large amounts of
knowledge and master complex skills to be
able to play "entertainment games." If
educational games could be equally enjoyable
or "intrinsically motivating," children would be
learning for pleasure. Monkey Tales is a game
that was developed according to this
philosophy by the educational publisher die
Keure and game developer Larian Studios. This
three-dimensional adventure game exists in
different versions for children from the second
to the sixth grade and is designed to practice
mental math in a playful way by solving
puzzles and mini-games. Until now, no
independent scientific research had been
conducted into the effectiveness of Monkey
Tales however.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials
provided by Ghent University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and
length. For further information, please contact
the source cited above.

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