The Effects of Mini-Games on Students’ Confidence and Performance in Mental Calculation

• Main Authors: Chi-yu Ku, 古騏毓
• Other Authors: Tak-wai Chan
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70401611959243248604

博士 === 國立中央大學 === 資訊工程學系 === 102 === Many students possess low confidence toward learning mathematics, which, in turn, may lead them to giving up pursing mathematical knowledge deeply. Recently, game-based learning (GBL) is regarded as a potential means to improve students’ confidence. In addition, mental calculation, a fundamental mathematical skill, was considered to be a potential skill that may build students’ confidence toward mathematics. Thus, the research presented in this dissertation attempted to promote students’ low confidence toward mathematics by incorporating mini-games, a sub-genre of games, into mental calculation learning. A preliminary study was conducted to investigate how students reacted to learn mental calculation in a mini-game environment. In addition, the teacher of the participants was interviewed to inquire the teacher’s attitude toward GBL. The results of the preliminary study suggested that the mini-game-based approach was popular to students. However, it was observed that students’ with different levels of academic ability might benefit diversely from the mini-game environment. Thus, an experiment was conducted to investigate how students with different levels of academic ability react to learn mental calculation with mini-games, in terms of two important aspects of learning, i.e., performance and confidence. A control group participated in a paper-based learning approach to provide a baseline of comparison. The results demonstrated that the mini-games approach yielded better outcomes than the paper-based setting in both of the confidence and performance aspects. Both high-ability and low-ability students in the mini-games group gained significant improvement on confidence toward learning mathematics. Additionally, students in the mini-games environment attained better mathematics performance than those in the paper-based setting, especially for low-ability students.