Strategies for Leveraging Learning Game Data for Middle School Mathematics Instruction

Abstract

Middle school mathematics education is subject to ongoing reform based on advances in instructional technologies, leading to recent calls for investment in learning games. The pertinent issues focus on the device-based data collection potential of these dynamic, innovative learning environments to improve classroom instruction. Through an extensive literature review, we identified three priority areas where data collected from learning games could assist teachers to make informed decisions: providing students with personalized feedback, assessing student learning, and promoting deeper learning. These requirements are used to highlight potential empirical and practical implications for leveraging collected gameplay data to improve instruction, demonstrating how the CandyFactory app could be harnessed to support classroom-based decision-making. Investigators have partnered with a school district in rural southwest Virginia, testing how students (n=306) from two middle schools in six mathematics classrooms benefited from CandyFactory and how it influenced mathematics engagement and achievement. Through a series of three participatory design workshops (occurring from June 2012-June 2013), partnering teachers (n=6) confirmed that having access to data from the three identified priority areas would allow for an integrated adoption of learning games into instruction, potentially leading to achievement gains. We conclude by proposing future research directions in developing targeted learning games to support evidence-supported decision-making, which in turn could benefit how middle school students engage with and achieve in mathematics.