Elementary Students' Concepts and Strategies in a Digital Stock Investment Game

Abstract

To improve the design of game-based learning systems for elementary school students in the subject domain of financial management, this study investigates how students use concepts and strategy in a game-based stock investment environment. An interview approach was conducted on 23 fifth-grade elementary school students who used the system to collect their opinions on stock investment functions. The results showed that (1) students were easy to unilaterally interpret the stock descriptions and misunderstand some key investment vocabularies; (2) students’ understanding were majorly influenced by significant others and media reports so that their key concepts were shaped. Based on these results, several suggestions for future development of financial management systems were also discussed.