In today's education, there is an increasing use of various teaching methods, including didactic games. Didactic games allow students to acquire knowledge or reinforce learning material through interactive activities, while also encouraging spontaneous learning without a sense of obligation. During the implementation of these activities, students develop social skills such as cooperation and communication, as well as healthy competitiveness, which together motivate students to make progress.
Therefore, in the context of this master's thesis, we decided to develop different competitive didactic games for the educational content of motion in learning in the subject of Learning about the Environment for second-grade primary school students. With these didactic games, we explored to what extent students can deepen their knowledge of specific learning contents. Additionally, we examined students' opinions on the developed competitive didactic games and how they evaluate cooperation during their implementation. The research involved 24 second-grade students from a selected urban primary school. Data were collected in several ways. Before and after the implementation of the didactic games, students took a test to assess progress. They also completed two questionnaires (a questionnaire for evaluating competitive didactic games and a questionnaire on student cooperation). We conducted a semi-structured interview with selected students.
The results of the study showed that the developed competitive didactic games positively impacted students' acquired knowledge during the lessons. In the educational content of motion, students achieved moderate progress in knowledge. Analysis of the questionnaires revealed that students found the competitive didactic games interesting and enjoyable. During the implementation, we noticed that learning with didactic games is motivating and encourages curiosity. During the execution of the competitive didactic games, the students had different opinions on competition and cooperation.
The findings of the study can be helpful to educational professionals, especially teachers who would like to use the teaching method of didactic games in their work, as well as to researchers in the field of didactic games providing a potential starting point for further research.
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