Playful Thinking as a Strategy to Assess Mathematical Skills in Primary School

Abstract

This research aims to find gamified tools that can be used by teachers in their classes and transform traditional evaluation so that it is attractive to the student and their mathematical skills are developed. The objective of the research was to empirically analyze whether the use of gamification has a positive impact on Mathematics Evaluation, through the application of a quasi-experimental program for learning basic operations in fourth-year students of Basic General Education. We worked with an experimental group and a control group, under the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in the results of the evaluation of basic operations in mathematics when using a traditional instrument and another online. The designed instrument consists of 20 multiple-choice questions, extracted from the PISA model evaluates for the fourth year. The experimental group was evaluated with the instrument in Word and the online instrument was used with the control group. The results of the evaluation of the experimental group have an average of 16.15, after the intervention, while the control group has an average of 14.20; showing that there is a difference in the evaluations when using a traditional instrument and another online. It is concluded that these new ways of evaluating and learning through gamified modalities and resources open new spaces to investigate different options on how to value knowledge to future generations, regardless of obstacles of time, space, and resources.