Relationships between Students’ Use of Gestures and Learning Outcomes in Digital Math Games
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between students’ use of gestures during digital math gameplay and mathematics learning outcomes. This study employed a convergent mixed methods design to answer the overarching research question: What is the relationship between students’ use of gestures during digital math gameplay and mathematics learning outcomes? Participants were 77 third- and fourth-grade students who interacted with three digital math games during 60-minute semi-structured interviews. Researchers collected quantitative (pretests and posttests) and qualitative (video/audio recordings) data. Data analysis included qualitative coding for gesture types (deictic, beat, iconic, or metaphoric), frequency tables, and nonparametric analyses for skewed data. The Wilcoxon Singed-Ranked test showed significant results from pretest to posttest for two of the digital math games. The Spearman’s Rank-Order Correlation showed no significant correlation among the gesture types and changes from pretest to posttest. Frequencies suggested that students use of iconic or metaphoric gestures was related to obtaining higher learning outcomes. These results are important to future research and practicing teachers because they show which gesture types relate to mathematics learning while playing digital math games.
Presider: Sarah Prestridge, Griffith University