Teaching can be challenging when students aren't engaged, test scores are down, and classroom behaviors are increasing.
Fortunately, teachers have a lot of different strategies available at different points in the teaching cycle. Research can help us decide which of those strategies may be worth adding to our instructional toolkit.
One interesting question is whether digital games actually keep students more engaged and on task than other instructional strategies.
Ryan Schaaf explored exactly that question in a study of elementary students:
Does digital game-based learning improve student time-on-task behavior and engagement in comparison to alternative instructional strategies?
The results provide some support for digital game-based learning—but they also give us a good reminder that games are just one of many strategies teachers can use.
Comparing Digital Games With Other Teaching Strategies
Schaaf's study compared digital game-based learning with several established instructional strategies, including carousel brainstorming, team webbing, concept attainment, jigsaw, learning stations, and round table activities.
This is an important comparison.
The students weren't being asked to choose between playing a game and sitting through an entire class period of passive instruction. Digital games were being compared with other active, research-based instructional strategies.
Students in Grades 3 through 5 participated in eight lesson cycles. The groups received the same instructional content but experienced different instructional strategies.
The researchers then looked at two related questions:
Were students more engaged?
And:
Did students spend more time on task?
Measuring More Than Whether Students Liked the Games
One strength of the study is that the researchers didn't simply ask students whether they liked playing games.
Students completed surveys after lessons and rated their enjoyment and how focused they believed they had been during the activity. They were also able to provide comments about their experience.
But the researchers added another source of information: classroom observation.
Students were observed during the activities to determine whether they were actually demonstrating on-task behaviors.
That gave the study two different perspectives.
What did students say about their experience?
And what could an observer actually see happening in the classroom?
That's particularly useful when we're talking about engagement. A student can tell us an activity was fun, but enjoyment and on-task behavior aren't necessarily the same thing.
What Did the Study Find?
Overall, the results tended to favor digital game-based learning.
In six of the eight trials, students reported greater enjoyment during digital game-based learning.
In six of the eight trials, digital game-based learning produced equal or higher class averages for student-reported focus and attentiveness.
And in seven of the eight trials, classroom observations produced higher averages for the students participating in digital game-based learning.
At first glance, that sounds like a decisive victory for games.
But that's not quite the conclusion the researcher reached.
Schaaf concluded that the data suggested digital game-based learning could be as effective in the classroom as other research-supported instructional strategies.
That's an important distinction.
Games Aren't the Only Way to Engage Students
The study gives us evidence that digital games can help keep students engaged and on task.
It doesn't tell us that we should replace all of our other teaching strategies with games.
The comparison group wasn't using one single instructional method. Students experienced several different strategies, which makes it difficult to isolate exactly which features produced differences in engagement.
The research was also conducted with a relatively limited group of elementary students in a particular school setting.
That's one of the challenges of classroom research. Real classrooms aren't laboratories. Students are different, teachers are different, activities are different, and dozens of things can affect what happens during a lesson.
For teachers, however, there is still something useful here.
Build a Bigger Instructional Toolkit
The biggest takeaway for me isn't that we should use digital games instead of everything else.
It's that we need many strategies in our instructional toolkit.
There are days when cooperative learning works beautifully.
There are lessons that are perfect for learning stations.
Sometimes students need direct instruction.
Sometimes they need independent practice.
Sometimes they need to talk to one another.
And sometimes a game can provide exactly the change of pace needed to get students focused on the material again.
The goal isn't to find the one instructional strategy that works every time.
There probably isn't one.
Instead, we can build a collection of strategies that allow us to change how students encounter, practice, and interact with what we're teaching.
What Does This Mean for Our Classrooms?
Digital game-based learning appears to be a legitimate option to include in that collection.
In Schaaf's study, students generally reported greater enjoyment and focus during digital game-based activities, while classroom observations also tended to show greater on-task behavior.
That's encouraging.
But it doesn't mean every lesson should become a game or that digital games are automatically more effective than other instructional strategies.
Use games when they serve a purpose.
Use cooperative learning when it serves a purpose.
Use direct instruction, discussion, independent practice, stations, projects, and all of the other strategies available to us when they're the right tool for the students and material in front of us.
Games don't need to replace good teaching.
They can simply become another tool for good teaching.
Research Discussed
Schaaf, R. (2012). Does Digital Game-Based Learning Improve Student Time-on-Task Behavior and Engagement in Comparison to Alternative Instructional Strategies? Canadian Journal of Action Research, 13(1), 50–64.
Looking for another tool to add to your classroom? Explore the ready-to-use review games available from Cindy's Classroom Games.