LTS Dr Kawashima Summary Report

As a result of a small scale intervention that we carried out in some classrooms last year we managed to fund an extended study to explore further the findings that we identified in relation to mental maths attainment and academic self-concept as a result of playing Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for the Nintendo DS in the primary school.

As a result of this extended study, carried out by Learning and Teaching Scotland in partnership with the University of Dundee and HMIE, we now have some concrete evidence of learning gains that can be attributed to the use of a games console in the primary classroom. But it has also raised a series of questions in our minds; there is a lot more we need to learn…

Although our research does indicate significant gains by the Nintendo group we feel that two things are particularly important for those with an interest in Scottish education. The first is that even the control group children showed measurable improvements in performance; this reflects very well on hard-working Scottish class teachers. The second point is important when thinking about the implications of our findings: because of the research design, we can feel confident that these findings are likely to be typical of what we can realistically expect across the board in Scotland.

We attach a summary paper that gives an outline of what we have found. We intend to submit a fuller paper for full academic review hence the summary nature of the information that we are sharing with you. The results will be discussed and shared with a wider audience for the first time at the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow.

Categories: Nintendo
Tags: Consolarium, Derek Robertson, games based learning, LTS, Nintendo, SLF2008