Conceptions and Instructional Strategies of Pre-Service Teachers Towards Digital Game Based Learning Integration in the Primary Education Curriculum

Abstract

Teachers' digital literacy is part of the 21st century professional competences and is an essential part of the decision-making process leading to integrate the use of technologies in the classroom according to the curricular needs. This article focus on the teachers' competence to integrate technologies in the classroom by analyzing their integration strategies. The teachers' curricular integration strategies are analyzed in this article by analyzing Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) curricular integration strategies with a group of 73 pre-service primary teachers in Université Laval (Canada). The results show the pre-service teachers selected the use of existing resources instead of the creation of new ones. The majority of the selected resources were games in the are of Mathematics. The participants discussed this strategy as the easiest way to align the digital games in the primary education curriculum. The authors discuss, at the end of the paper, the limits of this strategy and the opportunities to develop alternative ways to integrate digital games in the classroom to develop the curricular objectives such game repurposing and the creation of digital games as a learning activity.