Assessing fraction knowledge by a digital game

: Manuel Ninaus, Kristian Kiili, Jake McMullen, Korbinian Moeller

Publisher: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

: 2017

: Computers in Human Behavior

: COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR

: COMPUT HUM BEHAV

: 70

: 197

: 206

: 10

: 0747-5632

: 1873-7692

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.01.004

Serious or educational games gain increasing research interest as tools to augment traditional instructional approaches on scholastic learning, especially in mathematics education. In this study, we investigated whether game-based approaches may not only be useful to foster numerical learning but may also be valid as an assessment tool. To measure their conceptual knowledge of fractions eleven-year-old students played a math game on tablet computers using tilt-control to navigate an avatar along a number line for a total of 30 min. Findings indicated that hallmark effects of fraction magnitude processing typically observed in basic research, such as the numerical distance effect, were successfully replicated using the game-based assessment. Moreover, fraction comparison performance as well as fraction estimation accuracy correlated significantly with students' math grades. Therefore, the results of the current study suggest that game-based learning environments for fraction education (even using tilt control) may also allow for a valid assessment of students' fraction knowledge. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.