Examining pedagogical approaches and types of mathematics knowledge in educational games: A meta-analysis and critical review

This meta-analysis systematically reviewed math game studies published between 2010 and 2020 and evaluated them with respect to a) the type of pedogeological foundations inherent in games using Kebritchi and Hirumi's (2008) framework, b) the type of mathematics knowledge they facilitated (Bisanz & LeFevre, 1990; Rittle-Johnson, 2017), and c) their effect on math learning. Only 23 out of 26 studies used games based on a clear pedagogical approach and many studies measured multiple knowledge types. A direct instructional approach was most often used in games to target factual knowledge and resulted in an overall medium sized effect (g = 0.58), whereas procedural and conceptual knowledge were used by games using three types of pedagogical approach: experiential, discovery, and constructivist approaches but with mixed effect sizes. Overall, behaviorally oriented pedagogies are still dominant in math games and the effectiveness of each pedagogical approach varies as a function of knowledge type.