A Study of the Effects of Integrating Board Games into the Curriculum on Children’s Spatial Ability Development

• Main Authors: WANG, HUEI-JHU, 王慧珠
• Other Authors: FAN, PING-LIN Ph. D.
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3x5f5q

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 數位科技設計學系(含玩具與遊戲設計碩士班) === 106 === Spatial ability is crucial to daily life and is an important psychological feature behind art, science, mathematics and even literature. Early childhood is the rudimentary stage of spatial ability development. It is necessary to improve the development of spatial ability through constant hands-on tasks and exploring, such as building blocks, jigsaw puzzles, tangrams, and origami. In actual classrooms, however, such activities are often limited due to factors like venue and the number of children. In addition, small children’s playing and exploring are frequently interrupted owing to the durability of the teaching tools or lack of fun. Recent studies have shown that the use of board games has positive effects on learning in kindergarten classes. This study uses "Ka-Boom", a board game that relies heavily on spatial ability, as a tool to observe how board games integrated into the curriculum can affect the development of children’s space skills. The subjects of the research consisted of 30 children aged 6 in a kindergarten affiliated to a Taipei City elementary school. They were arranged to play Ka-Boom three times a week, each session being 30 minutes, for four weeks. Children's psychological conversion task was used in pre- and post-test as the research tool. Additional analysis was done through classroom observation, child interview records and parent questionnaires. The results show that board games are significantly effective in improving children’s spatial abilities of shifting and rotation, and that such effects are much more significant on boys than on girls. Teachers on scene learned how to integrate board games into teaching, and the experiment is used as a future reference for researchers on operation and tool-choice for board game classes.