Game-based Learning Focus of UNCW Study

Following President Obama’s recent push to increase the use of videogames as a teaching tool comes results of a study that gives high marks to one such implementation.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Watson School of Education conducted a 26-week study into the aspects of using a first-person adventure game that reinforces math skills. Tabula Digita’s DimensionM series of games were the basis of the study, with 250 middle school students and 10 middle school teachers participating.

The results were overwhelmingly positive: 90 percent indicated that some or most of the activities were fun; approximately 67 percent felt the activities were just right in their level of complexity, and about 89 percent believed DimensionM allowed them to demonstrate some or most of their mathematics skills and knowledge.

Lead researcher Albert Ritzhaupt, also an Assistant Professor in the Watson School of Education, stated:

During our post-research focus group, teachers were asked if they thought the relationship had changed between them and their students as a result of integrating the educational game. All teachers, 100 percent, answered that the relationship had changed, indicating that many felt that the students now saw them in a different way.

One unnamed teacher added, “Students find gaming exciting and the mere fact that I was offering it in my classroom made a connection. It made me ‘more cool’ to them.”