Digital game-based learning for formative assessment in mathematics education

Abstract

This research explored how primary school teachers in England utilise digital game-based learning (DGBL) in mathematics education and how formative assessment frameworks such as Black and William’s (2009) five key strategies for effective formative assessment and Burkhardt and Schoenfeld’s (2018, 2019) five dimensions of effective mathematics lessons, can be applied to their DGBL approaches. Based on a pragmatist worldview, a quasi-mixed method design consisting of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews was developed and conducted. 60 primary school teachers participated in the survey whilst 10 teachers participated in the interviews. The quantitative data was scrutinised by descriptive statistical analysis methods while reflexive thematic analysis was conducted on the qualitative data. Findings revealed that primary school teachers in England consider these digital games to be effective in increasing students’ motivation, enjoyment, engagement, and academic achievement, however, they only utilise simple, practicebased digital games that aim to increase students’ procedural fluency rather than higherorder abilities such as conceptual understanding, strategic competence, or adaptive reasoning. Furthermore, they strongly believe that both game characteristics and student characteristics have a significant influence on digital educational games’ effectiveness in primary school mathematics education. In terms of DGBL’s potential to be productively used for formative assessment, it was found that how primary school teachers view and utilise digital educational games in mathematics education does not satisfy either Black and William’s (2009) all five key strategies for effective formative assessment or Burkhardt and Schoenfeld’s (2018, 2019) all five dimensions of effective mathematics lessons. Findings indicated that teachers do not find digital games suitable for, particularly, clarifying and sharing learning intentions, engineering effective classroom discussions to generate evidence of students’ understandings, providing effective feedback, and providing equitable access to the maths learning environment. The study contributed to existing knowledge by demonstrating the difference between teachers’ views on DGBL in primary school mathematics education and what the literature has suggested so far, highlighting DGBL’s potential to be used for formative assessment from the perspectives of two different frameworks, suggesting a quasi-mixed method procedure rather than conducting a short experiment, demonstrating a new approach to thematic analysis, and informing the future decisions of educational executives. Finally, this study indicated the necessity for further research comparing DGBL with non-digital game-based learning in terms of efficacy, investigating the links between academic achievement in mathematics and concepts such as motivation, engagement, and enjoyment in a DGBL environment, exploring DGBL’s efficacy when used as homework, inquiring into head teachers and local educational authorities’ views on DGBL, and testing how DGBL helps low-achievers and high-achievers differently more thoroughly.