Could gamified education boost student STEM abilities?
Could gamified education boost student STEM abilities?
Could gamified education boost student STEM abilities?
August 15, 2022
Summary
New research suggests that gamified education can help students to improve spatial reasoning skills.
The study from the University of South Australia showed that regular use of Makers Empire - a gamified 3D computer-aided design program - can significantly improve spatial reasoning skills in up to 85% of children.
Spatial reasoning is the capacity to establish relationships between objects and understand how they interact and look from different perspectives and environments.
"We've known for a while now that spatial thinking is one of the important ingredients to success across the STEM disciplines, and that spatial reasoning is malleable - it can be improved."By engaging children with the Makers Empire program, we not only showed improvements in students' spatial reasoning skills, but also that the growth trajectory was greatest among students who were struggling in this area.
"Students who started with slightly lower spatial reasoning skills than their peers demonstrated a growth trajectory three times greater than their peers who started with more developed skills. This group also reported increased enjoyability and reduced anxiety towards digital and design technology." Working with 155 primary students, the study assessed the use of the Makers Empire 3D design app for one 45- to 90-minute lesson each week, over 10 weeks.
Importantly, the program also boosted girls' beliefs and abilities to master these spatial reasoning skills, lowering the gender gap from 3.5% to 1.9%. In Australia, women make up only 28% of the STEM workforce, with the gender gaps particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future.
"Helping children develop their spatial reasoning skills in a fun and engaging way is really rewarding, and we're very pleased to see the evidence for what teachers have been telling us over the years," she said.
Reference
Could gamified education boost student STEM abilities?. (2022, August 15). Technology Decisions. Retrieved August 22, 2022, from https://www.technologydecisions.com.au/content/futureed/article/could-gamified-education-boost-student-stem-abilities--1001827587