In B. Dyson (Guest Editor), Experimenting with games <Special issue>. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000414
ABSTRACT:
Can children learn basic mathematical concepts through playing a game? OЯTHO is a two-player game implemented on a large multitouch digital tabletop. Players must cooperate to navigate a digital ball through a maze. One player, positioned along the table’s length, controls the horizontal position of the ball, as the other player, positioned along the table’s width, controls its vertical position. The game was designed to foster the development of coordinate perception: an acquired capacity to attend to objects as located in space at points specifiable by linearly independent axes. Theoretically, the game is conceptualized as steering players’ gradual transition from situated sensorimotor entrainment to grounded mathematical practice. To evaluate the game’s rationale, we randomized two of its aspects—(1) the sequencing of game conditions (n=254), and (2) track features players had to overcome (n=1,218)—testing their impact on young players’ performance on a quantitative coordinate task. We found that a sensorimotor-first sequence and encountering decision points most improved players’ coordinate fluency. We offer a set of heuristic principles for designing collaborative games fostering mathematical perception, and we speculate on the prospects of integrating such games into mainstream education as conceptual entries to curricular modules.