Playing Board Games Research Articles

Time spent on board games pays off

The impact playing has on the development of thinking is an important topic of psychology of learning, brain research and mathematics didactics.Our research is also connected to the aforementioned topic. We investigated the effects of playing board games on competence motivation and the development of mathematical competencies.In this paper, we present the results of an experiment carried out in a secondary school class.The experimental group spent one of three weekly mathematics lessons playing board games.Apart from the several advantages of playing games in general, we can conclude that, based on the results of the national competence measurement, the mathematical competence of the students developed properly.The readiness and the progress of the pupils were compared on the basis of input and output tests and an initial knowledge measurement and, at the same time, we compared their level of mathematical competence with the results of the national competencemeasurement.
 Subject Classification: 97C70, 97D40

Effects of playing Go for education and psychological treatment

The ancient board game Go is traditionally used as educational tool in East Asian countries. Recently, neurobiological and psychological evidence has been found on the effects of Go playing regarding various intellectual and emotional factors. In this survey, we summarize these results and develop a coherent picture of the value that Go can add to education, as well as to psychological treatment. We will also briefly highlight what makes Go special as compared to other commonly played board games.

PROTOCOL: Recreational book reading for promoting cognitive functioning and emotional well-being in older adults: A systematic review.

PROTOCOL: Recreational book reading for promoting cognitive functioning and emotional well-being in older adults: A systematic review.

Playing Settlers of Catan Enhances Student Learning of Probability in Liberal Arts Mathematics

ABSTRACT Playing board games is known to improve pre-school student numeracy and many board games are used to motivate and explore concepts in probability. This study investigates whether college students in liberal arts mathematics courses assigned to play the board game Settlers of Catan develop a stronger grasp of basic probability concepts than those assigned more traditional homework problems via an analysis of pre- and post-assessments and final exam questions.

Non-pharmacological prevention and correction of cognitive disorders

This review deals with research on the effect of board games on the prevention of cognitive disorders in the older population. It is known that activities using board games significantly enhance educational and intellectual abilities in children. However, data on the effect of such interventions in older patients (including those at risk for developing dementia) are few and equivocal. In the Bronx Aging Study, reading, board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were associated with a reduced risk of cognitive disorders. The MoVIES study assessed the cognitive status of 942 participants aged 65 years and older, and a lower risk of dementia was found in those who devoted more than 1 hour per day to 'recreational activities'. The French study of the PAQUID cohort showed that those who regularly played board games had a 15% lower risk of developing dementia than those who did not. This review attempts to systematize the known data (including functional MRI data) on how playing board games influences changes in cognitive function. The article covers memory mechanisms that are necessary components of cognitive health. Structures that are directly involved in long-term memory formation, especially explicit memory, including the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and entorhinal cortex, are described. The article includes studies covering not only geographical, economic and social status, age, gender, and level of cognitive load, but also the different assessments measuring the effect board games have on the brain. Different assessment methods and functional MRI data have demonstrated the potential effectiveness of using board games in the prevention of both age-related and pathological intellectual ageing.

A Primer on Machine Learning.

A Primer on Machine Learning.

Improving interactions of transition-age peers with visual impairment and intellectual disability

This collaborative action research study addressed the interaction skills of two young adults with visual impairments and intellectual disability in the context of a board game. The intervention involved the use of an adapted board game, four social stories, and rehearsal of game play skills in the context of individual and group therapy sessions. Instructional strategies included clear within and between activity routines, least to most prompting system, sufficient wait time, and modeling of game play behaviors. Both young men improved their initiation skills, terminated interactions appropriately with fewer prompts, and learned some of the elements of board game play. Self-stimulation and anxiety over changes in their daily lives impacted progress. More research is needed to investigate the potential benefit of social stories for students with visual impairments and additional disabilities.

Examining Board Gameplay and Learning: A Multidisciplinary Review of Recent Research

Background Recent years have seen the resurgence of board games designed for entertainment, and to teach or explicate real life problems. The revival of board gameplay has been discussed in mainstream media, and has drawn the attention of researchers. Yet, in the field of games studies, the conception of games as learning spaces is mostly emphasized through digital/video games. Aim This literature review reveals the current knowledge regarding the learning potential of board games in various settings, subjects, and diverse learners. Results Board games are spaces for mathematical learning and learning spaces that can enable the learning of various contents. Board games allow for various interactions that result in players engaging in computational thinking, teamwork, and creativity. Conclusion The relationship between board gameplay and learning is evidenced across disciplines and countries. Board games simplify complex issues and systems, which make them appropriate to further explore learning and concepts such as motivation and computational thinking in formal and informal settings. Furthermore, there is need to expand research on learning in commercial board games.

Association of Physical Activity and Cognitive Activity With Disability: A 2-Year Prospective Cohort Study.

ObjectiveEngaging in physical activity (PA) and/or cognitive activity (CA) retains function in older adults, but whether the combination of these activities is associated with disability onset is still unknown. This study aimed to examine the prospective association of PA and/or CA with disability onset in older adults.MethodsThis was an ongoing prospective community-based cohort study. Data collection was conducted through a health check. An analyzable sample of 2668 participants (mean age = 75.5 years; 51.6% female) were categorized into 4 groups based on quartile 1 (low) and 2 to 4 (high) values of accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous PA and CA scale scores based on the frequency of 6 activities including reading, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, and playing board games or cards. Disability onset was monitored through long-term care insurance certification for at least 2 years.ResultsA log-rank test showed significantly lower incidence of disability in the high PA and low CA group and the high PA and high CA group compared with the low PA and low CA group. Cox-proportional hazards models (referring to the low PA and low CA group) showed that only the high PA and high CA group was significantly associated with a lowered hazard ratio for disability onset (0.51; 95% CI = 0.29–0.90) after adjusting for covariates.ConclusionsEngaging in both PA and CA is effective for reducing risk of disability onset, but engaging in either PA or CA is not effective.ImpactPhysical therapists can be guided by this research to design intervention strategies for people at risk of disability.

Novice young board-game players’ experience about computational thinking

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the qualitative study was to investigate experiences of first-time board-game users (29 elementary school students) in playing “Coding Ocean” (CO) to learn computational thinking. CO was a two-team strategy board game and was designed for children developing basic understanding of computational thinking. Participation observations and interviews were conducted to explained students’ novice player experiences, learned CT after their first-time exposures to CO, and usability feedback to the board game. The major findings of this study were two- fold. First, students were motivated and engaged, using board games to learn computational thinking. The winning strategies that students generated throughout the game promoted higher-order computational thinking. Second, students comprehended and interpreted the conceptual elements of computational thinking well after playing the game, having only a fraction of misconceptions. Overall, novice young players’ experience were positive, and they provided usability feedback and direction to improving CO. We suggest the game designers in providing supporting elements such as table masters training and course-bundle packages, and developing a series of contextual orientations that will engage novice players.

Nonlexical “Moans”: Response Cries in Board Game Interactions

ABSTRACTThis article examines nonlexical vocalizations in board game interactions, focusing on “moans.” Moans are prolonged, voiced, response cries. Moans react to game events where the player has suffered in some way. Despite the complaint-relevant nature of moans, game actions are never withdrawn in response to a moan, Moans are treated as laughable, while lexical complaints invoke arguments and apologies. This article suggests that moans are a manifestation of managing Bateson’s play paradox in that they denote suffering but also willingness to continue play and a validation of the prior event. Moans are suggested to be a contextualization cue for “this is play.” Given the relative unconventionality of the form of moans, these tokens are suggested as evidence that lack of conventionalization may be a members resource rather than a problem. The article analyzes a corpus of 34 hours of video-recorded board game play (169 tokens) in English (Canadian, American, and British).

Validating a Home Numeracy Questionnaire in Ecuador Using Factor Analysis

The home numeracy questionnaire (HNQ) developed by LeFevre et al. (2009) is a self-report instrument to assess the home numeracy of young children. In this questionnaire, young children’s parents have to indicate how often their child participates both in direct (e.g., counting down: 10, 9, 8, …) and indirect numeracy activities (e.g., playing board games with die or spinner). Based on a principal component analysis, LeFevre and colleagues found a four factor structure of the HNQ. Using a sample of 176 Ecuadorian parents, we investigated the validity and reliability of the HNQ in a developing country. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that, with minor changes to the model, the same four factor model could be found as by LeFevre et al. (2009). This study not only confirmed the validity and reliability of the HNQ, but also showed its usefulness for investigating young children’s home numeracy beyond developed countries

Parent–teacher interaction and its role in preschool children’s development in Russia

ABSTRACT Family and preschool institutions are the most influential environments for education and development. Therefore, the aim of this research is to study the prospects and drawbacks of early childhood development in the interaction of preschool and family education in Russia. The participants were 79 preschool teachers and 327 parents of children who attend kindergartens. Findings show that the most convenient forms of family–preschool interaction are group lessons, tours and group celebrations. Employees of preschool institutions are the least interested in the utilisation of information and commutation technologies. Commonly, the staff may have children aged 3–5 listening to music, playing board games, reading books, modelling, making applique, drawing and performing small routine tasks (collecting toys and dishes, watering the flowers). In contrast to the institute of family education, preschool education draws more attention to the child development. Findings demonstrate that unlike educators, parents endorse the use of digital technologies but 74.7% of them use technologies for leisure applications, rather than for educational and developmental purposes. The mentioned development methods are applied to reach child development by 28% of parents and 43.65% of educators. The findings may be applied to facilitate communication between parents and preschool teachers.

“Jungle Quest” Edukasi Pengetahuan Umum Lima Binatang Langka Indonesia Dalam Permainan Kartu

In this era of digital games, card games are quite difficult to find markets, because they have issue, and the production costs are not small. Compared to digital games that only need to be downloaded from the store application and can be played anywhere without spending a lot of money even free.According to the boardgame community data on the boardgame.id website, the number of enthusiastic boardgame players in Indonesia in 2017 is increasing because more and more indie developers are starting to create board games with interesting and creative ideas, which can attract board game enthusiasts to try and playBased on these data, the author plans a card game that can be played by certain people with the education theme of Indonesian rare animal information. Searching for Forests, among others, provides information about the general knowledge of five rare Indonesian animals, while training players’ dexterity.Keywords: Cardgame, Game, Jungle Quest

Visually attending to a video together facilitates great ape social closeness.

Humans create social closeness with one another through a variety of shared social activities in which they align their emotions or mental states towards an external stimulus such as dancing to music together, playing board games together or even engaging in minimal shared experiences such as watching a movie together. Although these specific behaviours would seem to be uniquely human, it is unclear whether the underlying psychology is unique to the species, or if other species might possess some form of this psychological mechanism as well. Here we show that great apes who have visually attended to a video together with a human (study 1) and a conspecific (study 2) subsequently approach that individual faster (study 1) or spend more time in their proximity (study 2) than when they had attended to something different. Our results suggest that one of the most basic mechanisms of human social bonding-feeling closer to those with whom we act or attend together-is present in both humans and great apes, and thus has deeper evolutionary roots than previously suspected.

Profiling Players in Dynamic Games: A Mobile Experiment

From CEOs confronting competition to children playing board games, our professional and personal lives are full of strategic decisions. Naturally, while playing the role of a strategist, people differ. To comprehend and analyze how they differ, first it is necessary to construct a profiling method that classifies strategic decision makers. Developing such a method is the main objective of our article. We follow the game-theoretic perspective, which equates strategizing with backward inducting in dynamic games. We rely on response times to construct the profiles. Our method has both descriptive power and predictive power: a subject’s profile resembles her strategic reasoning process and forecasts the likelihood of her correctly backward inducting. To test the proposed profiling method, we use data generated by 22 different finite dynamic games from the mobile app Blues and Reds. Our sample consists of 35,826 observations from 6,463 subjects located in 141 countries. We construct the profiles of our subjects, and, in a variety of exercises supported by an array of robustness checks, we successfully establish the predictive power of our profiling method.

Role of Child Life Specialists in Pediatric Palliative Care

Role of Child Life Specialists in Pediatric Palliative Care

Can cognitive leisure activity prevent cognitive decline in older adults? A systematic review of intervention studies.

The aims of this systematic review were to investigate what kind of cognitive leisure activities have been used in intervention studies targeting older adults, and whether these activities improve cognitive function or inhibit cognitive decline. Based on the PRISMA declaration, we searched keywords using three electronic databases: PubMed, PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES. Intervention studies involving cognitive leisure activities with cognitive assessments set as outcomes were included. We regarded cognitive leisure activities as activities for enjoyment or well-being that cause intellectual stimulation (e.g. reading, playing board games). To investigate the influence of each activity on cognitive domains, multicomponent programs (e.g. combined music and art) were excluded. In total, 20 studies were included in the evaluation. Consequently, intervention studies related to arts, writing, board games, reading, handicrafts, a crossword puzzle and learning computer skills were identified. Of the 20 studies, 13 showed improvement in some cognitive domain. In 12 of these 13 studies, the intervention effects were not observed in a specific cognitive domain; rather, the intervention effects were observed across multiple cognitive domains and on working memory. The results of the present review suggest that cognitive function in older adults can be improved through cognitive leisure activity interventions. Activities related to learning new skills, that cause strong intellectual stimulation and that include communication elements were considered particularly effective tools. However, as the number of studies is small, more high-quality research needs to be accumulated. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2019; 19: 469-482.

Just how miserable is work? A meta-analysis comparing work and non-work affect

Although we spend much of our waking hours working, the emotional experience of work, versus non-work, remains unclear. While the large literature on work stress suggests that work generally is aversive, some seminal theory and findings portray working as salubrious and perhaps as an escape from home life. Here, we examine the subjective experience of work (versus non-work) by conducting a quantitative review of 59 primary studies that assessed affect on working days. Meta-analyses of within-day studies indicated that there was no difference in positive affect (PA) between work versus non-work domains. Negative affect (NA) was higher for work than non-work, although the magnitude of difference was small (i.e., .22 SD, an effect size comparable to that of the difference in NA between different leisure activities like watching TV versus playing board games). Moderator analyses revealed that PA was relatively higher at work and NA relatively lower when affect was measured using “real-time” measurement (e.g., Experience Sampling Methodology) versus measured using the Day Reconstruction Method (i.e., real-time reports reveal a more favorable view of work as compared to recall/DRM reports). Additional findings from moderator analyses included significant differences in main effect sizes as a function of the specific affect, and, for PA, as a function of the age of the sample and the time of day when the non-work measurements were taken. Results for the other possible moderators including job complexity and affect intensity were not statistically significant.

Intuition, intelligence, data compression

The main goal of my paper is to argue that data compression is a necessary condition for intelligence. One key motivation for this proposal stems from a paradox about intuition and intelligence. For the purposes of this paper, it will be useful to consider playing board games—such as chess and Go—as a paradigm of problem solving and cognition, and computer programs as a model of human cognition. I first describe the basic components of computer programs that play board games, namely value functions and search functions. I then argue that value functions both play the same role as intuition in humans and work in essentially the same way. However, as will become apparent, using an ordinary value function is just a simpler and less accurate form of relying on a database or lookup table. This raises our paradox, since reliance on intuition is usually considered to manifest intelligence, whereas usage of a lookup table is not. I therefore introduce another condition for intelligence that is related to data compression. This proposal allows that even reliance on a perfectly accurate lookup table can be nonintelligent, while retaining the claim that reliance on intuition can be highly intelligent. My account is not just theoretically plausible, but it also captures a crucial empirical constraint. This is because all systems with limited resources that solve complex problems—and hence, all cognitive systems—need to compress data.