Computer in Education

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Computer in Education

• Jiaying Zhao
• CSE 610 Western Oregon University

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Computer games for the math achievement of
diverse students

• As a way to improve student academic performance,
  educators have begun paying special attention to
  computer games (Gee, 2005 Oblinger, 2006)
• This paper examined the effects of playing
  computer games on math achievement of 4th
  graders, with special focus on gender and
  language minority groups.
• To achieve greater generalizability of the study
  findings the study utilized a US nationally
  representative databasethe 2005 National
  Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
• Kim, S., Chang, M. (2010). Computer Games for
  the Math Achievement of Diverse Students.
  Educational Technology Society, 13 (3),
  224232.

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Research questions

• 1. Are computer games in math classes associated
  with the 4th-grade students math performance?
• 2. How does the relationship differ by
  linguistic group?
• 3. How does the association vary by gender?
• 4. Is there an interaction effect of computer
  games on linguistic and gender groups? In other
  words, how does the effect of computer games on
  linguistic groups vary by gender group?

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Some Important finding
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Methods

• The study used the 4th-grade math database of the
  NAEP 2005 for analyses.
• A computer game variable, the frequency of
  computer game use in math class, was the chief
  predictor variable
• The two math computer game variables were also
  used by creating interaction variables with
  gender and linguistic group variables.

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Results
It represents descriptive statistics and
inter-correlations of all varibles. The
correlation results showed all variables had
significant relationship with math scores. The
students who played computer games sometimes
showed high math scores (r0.031, plt.01), but
those who played computer games everyday tended
to have low math scores
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Results
It displays the association between computer
game frequency and math achievement for non-ELL
students. Overall, the effect of computer games
was greater for males than for females.The
pattern indicated that when students played math
games sometimes, they displayed the highest math
performance among the three groups.The second
performance group was the students who did not
play math games at all and the lowest performance
group was the students who played math games
everyday.The results highlight the finding
indicating that daily math game for non-ELL
students was negatively associated with math
performance
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Results
Figure 2 shows the relation between computer
game frequency and math achievement for ELL
students. The association patterns for ELL
students were quite different from those for
non-ELL students. The male ELL students
demonstrated high math performance when they
played math games sometimes or daily, while male
students displayed low performance when they
never played math games. The female ELL students
had the highest math performance when they played
math games sometimes, the second highest when
they did not play, and the lowest when they
played every day
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Discussion

• The study performed an analysis to examine the
  differential effect of computer games for
  students of two linguistic groups. Among native
  English-speaking students, the male students who
  played math computer games daily performed
  significantly worse than the students who never
  played.
• The study found a gender-based differential
  effect of computer games on math achievement the
  computer game was significantly associated with
  males math achievement, but not with females
  achievement.

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Discussion

• In the third model, English-speaking male
  students showed low math achievement scores with
  daily math games, ELL male students demonstrated
  high performance with daily math games in class.
  It was interpreted that daily games for
  English-speaking male students can be a
  distracting factor for their school engagement,
  but daily games for ELL male students can be an
  educational stimulator.
• The study confirmed the differential effects of
  math computer games on the academic achievement
  of diverse students from different linguistic and
  gender groups, and it suggests that various
  learner characteristics should be considered when
  attempting to explore the effects of computer
  games.