Study of the guidance and spatial perception in pupils of the childhood education through portal 2

Abstract

The video game is a tool whose expansion and cultural roots in today’s society allows its inclusion as a didactic element to work with students. The study has been directed to the students of the 2nd year of the Infant Education degree of the Faculty of Education Sciences of the University of Cadiz. We have used the video game Portal 2 to work with our students on concepts such as orientation and spatial perception. Concepts of great importance in the stage of Infant Education, stage in which the children have their first contact with the school. In such a way that the future teachers will have to contribute the sufficient tools to their future students to relate with the space that surrounds them. The methodology used in this experience has been of a quantitative nature with a total number of students of 170. An exploratory study has been carried out in 6 groups. The procedure was carried out in three different phases: (a) Introduction to the basic concepts of the Portal 2 video game. (b) Free and guided play session and (c) completion of a questionnaire. The results obtained indicate that the students acquire certain skills related to orientation and spatial perception and other knowledge related to the mathematical field, such as decision making, after the use of the video game Portal 2. As a conclusion, it can be pointed out that students perceive play as an element of interest in the classroom, although not necessarily in the educational context of Early Childhood Education; rather, they orient it to higher educational contexts such as Primary and Secondary Education. Nevertheless, they consider that its inclusion would improve the capacity for abstraction, interpretation and spatial perception.

Keywords

• videojuego
• orientación espacial
• percepción espacial
• educación infantil