Educational Games: Its Effectiveness in Teaching Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

An educational game is designed to teach students about a specific subject and to teach them a skill. Games are an interactive play that teaches us goals, rules, adaptation, problem-solving, interaction, all represented as a story. It satisfies individuals' fundamental need to learn by providing enjoyment, passionate involvement, structure, motivation, creativity, social interaction and emotion in the game itself while the learning takes place.

METHODS

The experimental method of research was used in the study. Experimental research applying parallel group design was utilized. Parallel group design includes two or more groups that will be used at the same time only one single variable is manipulated or changed. The study made use of two groups. The experimental group was exposed to the developed educational games in Social sciences while the parallel group or the unexposed group served as the control for comparative purposes.

RESULTS

Findings reveal that the two groups of respondents have the same entry knowledge in Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences before the conduct of the experiment. This implies that both groups of students find the items in the pre-test difficult since these concepts are new to them. After delivering the post-test, students from the control group who able to achieve 75% of the test score are 22 or 55% and 37 or 93% for the experimental group. The mean scores, total scores, and number of students who are able to achieve 75% of the test score respectively indicate that the students have averagely mastered the necessary competencies on the discussed topics.

DISCUSSIONS

The results reveal that students who were exposed to educational games have higher scores than those students exposed to the traditional method of teaching Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences. This implies that students are motivated in learning the subject utilizing educational games. This is in conformity with the ideas of Macutay (2014) that educational games can increase the learner's skills and enjoys learning. He believes that by engaging students in active learning by giving students some level of control over the environment and the outcomes of the games.