The Effectiveness of Educational Computer Games on the Academic Motivation in Third Grade Elementary School Students with Math Learning Disability

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness ofeducationalcomputer games on the academic motivation in third grade elementaryschool students with math learning disability. Method: For this purpose,by implementing a quasi-experimental research, 40 students among all thirdgrade elementary boy schools of Khorramabad city were selected using availablesampling and were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. Theresearch instrument was the 28-item Wolrend’s motivation questionnaire. Theconstruct validity of this questionnaire has been confirmed by Bagheri (2000)using factor analysis and its reliability has been reported to be 0.78 throughCronbach’s Alpha. The researcher administered academic motivation pretest inboth groups. In the experimental group, the teacher first presented the lesson(four main operations) and used computer games as a complement for the conceptof education. But the teacher in the control group used the conventional methodfor teaching mathematical concepts. Then, the researcher conducted educationalmotivation post-test. Results: The results indicated that there was asignificant difference in academic motivation of the experimental group incomparison with the control group (p≥ 0.001). Conclusion:Educationalcomputer games for teaching summation, subtraction, multiplication,and division lead to increased academic motivation in students with mathlearning disability, so it is suggested that modern educational technologies,especially computer games be used in teaching mathematical concepts.

Keywords

• academic motivation
• educationalcomputer games
• math learning disability