Students learn more/faster with games than with traditional methods of instruction, and the games do not have to be long form, expensive, graphic intensive; they just need to be well designed.
In a
controlled study with 13 teachers, each teaching one class with the games and one without the games (1,000 students), Vanderbilt University's Douglas Clark looked at 55 games that taught Jacksonian Democracy and contracted by
Legends of Learning.
Participating students
- improved their test scores by one half of a letter grade
- exhibited greater engagement
- were less prone to falling off-task
- increased confidence and content mastery
And special education students specifically provided lengthier responses to open-ended questions, showed greater confidence with the subject matter, and achieved a standard deviation of difference.
The study showed that for
- investigative, critical thinking, and problem solving skills, use deeper content games
- review and reinforcement, use quiz-style games
