Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students

Sotiris Kirginas

doi:10.30935/cedtech/11526

Sotiris Kirginas ¹ ^*

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CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 14, Issue 2, Article No: ep351

https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526

Submitted: 28 October 2021, Published Online: 09 January 2022

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Abstract

This paper aims to explore the impact of freeform digital games on primary school students’ narrative skills, in terms of linguistic cohesion and semantic coherence, compared to other digital media, such as formally structured digital games and movies. A total of 128 Year 6 Primary school students participated in this research. Initially, students were divided into three groups. In all three groups, an educational intervention programme was applied. At the end of this phase, each student was asked to produce a narrative discourse (pre-test) about Crusoe’s survival on the mysterious island. Subsequently, students of each group were involved in activities with different digital material. At the last part of the research, students were asked to produce a narrative discourse (post-test) which was compared to the pre-test discourse, to determine whether there had been an improvement in the narrative discourse produced by the students of the three groups. The results presented in this paper show that the narrative discourses of students who played with the freeform digital game showed statistically significant improvement in cohesion and coherence compared to the discourse of students who played with the formally structured digital game and the students who watched the film.

Keywords: freeform digital games, structured digital games, narrative skills, primary school

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Citation

Kirginas, S. (2022). Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students. Contemporary Educational Technology, 14(2), ep351. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526

Kirginas, S. (2022). Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students. Contemporary Educational Technology, 14(2), ep351. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526

Kirginas S. Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students. CONT ED TECHNOLOGY. 2022;14(2), ep351. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526

Kirginas, Sotiris. "Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students". Contemporary Educational Technology 2022 14 no. 2 (2022): ep351. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526

Kirginas, Sotiris "Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students". Contemporary Educational Technology, vol. 14, no. 2, 2022, ep351. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526

Kirginas S. Improving Students’ Narrative Skills through Gameplay Activities: A Study of Primary School Students. CONT ED TECHNOLOGY. 2022;14(2):ep351. https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/11526