Abstract
This article reports the design of a scientific board game, named “Element Enterprise Tycoon” (EET), which creates a scenario combining chemical elements, techniques, and products in daily life. The game cards are designed to motivate students not only to retrieve information about chemical elements, but also to be proficient in chemistry. Moreover, the game creates opportunities for group interactions and competitions to engage students in learning chemical elements as they do in regular science curricula. The EET has been field-tested with a group of middle school students to evaluate its applicability. Empirical data show that students improve their understanding of chemistry concepts with a median level of effect size. In particular, students achieve better performance in terms of chemistry-related technique concepts. The follow-up interviews reflect students’ positive feedback and attitudes toward science learning through board game playing and their willingness to continue to play the game. It is suggested that learning through science games can indeed help students learn new chemical knowledge.
Highlights
The use of scientific board games for teaching and the gamification of scientific concepts has become an emerging teaching trend [1]
Students at this learning stage had learned the basic concepts of the periodic table of chemical students at this learning stage had learned the basic concepts of the periodic table of chemical elements
The results of this study show that students may achieve favorable learning results by playing scientific board games
Summary
The use of scientific board games for teaching and the gamification of scientific concepts has become an emerging teaching trend [1]. Research shows the difficulties in helping students achieve higher learning motivation by using only the traditional modes of memorization and repeated practice, which may cause students to lose their interest in science as well as their willingness to further study and explore science independently [2,3]. It is evident that using board games for teaching can improve students’ motivation for learning, reduce the learning difficulty of complex concepts, and subsequently improve their learning efficiency [4,5,6,7]. Martí-Centelles and Rubio-Magnieto [1] consider the periodic table of chemical elements to be the basis of chemistry and the most important scientific language. Teachers often taught the periodic table of chemical elements by requiring students to memorize, recite, and learn through rote formulas. The main purpose of this game was to help students
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