Achievement Emotions During Math Game Play

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Technology, Media & Child Development

Abstract

Educational math games are thought to be a promising and enjoyable way to improve students’ math achievement (Afari et al., 2013; Kiili et al., 2014; Ritzhaupt, 2011; Outhwaite et al., 2017). However, most studies focus on enjoyment of games while overlooking other critical achievement emotions, such as frustration, boredom, relaxation, and anger (Loderer et al., 2018). These emotions are important in learning, as they can affect learning outcomes via motivation, cognitive resource moderation, memory processes, problem-solving strategies, and self-regulation (Loderer et al., 2018). So far, Loderer and colleagues’ work is the only one that explores the design of emotional foundations in game-based learning. Loderer et al. argued that emotional support can improve learning for all individuals and hence, proposed five general principles for game design from an emotion perspective: visual aesthetic design, musical score, game mechanics, narrative, and incentive system. However, empirical evidence to support Loderer and colleagues’ five principles of facilitating emotions during game play is lacking. To address this problem, this paper will review empirical studies on educational math games’ using these five principles as a lens to explore how specific game design principles affect students’ math emotions. A systematic review is being conducted, where key words related to ‘game*’ and ‘math*’ and ‘emotion*’were searched in three databases: PsycINFO, ERIC EBSCO and Scopus, limited by ‘English’ and ‘peer-reviewed journal’. The initial search returned 159 articles. After duplicates were removed, 133 articles remained for further screening with abstracts and full-text. This reflects the initial stage of screening, while the whole screening process will be done by December 2020. The preliminary result (see Figure) indicates that, among the reviewed studies, most of them focus on how games affect students’ enjoyment and anxiety with few exploring emotions such as boredom and frustration. For game design, the findings suggest that appropriate visual aesthetic design (such as bright colors and avatars), musical score (high musical temp, sound feedback), and game mechanics (games that support social interaction and offer scaffolding) lead to enjoyment and decrease anxiety. While games with poor mechanics (tasks that lacks clarity or insufficient challenging) or lacking narrative and incentive systems (rewards, points, scores, badges) are likely to result in either frustration or boredom. Overall, if the current trend holds, adopting emotional design principles into games can help generate positive emotions during math game play. The results will provide insights on how to design and identify educational math games that facilitate students’ positive achievement emotions. Future works of emotional design impacts on students’ outcome related emotions such as hope, relief, pride, anger, and shame are needed.

Group Authors

Run Wen & Adam K.Dubé

Authors

• Run Wen, McGill University
  Presenting Author

• Adam Kenneth Dubé, McGill University
  Non-Presenting Author