Educational or didactic games, e.g. board educational games (BEG), can be used in the classroom to achieve educational goals. There is no research in Slovenia on the use and relevance of such games in the education of secondary school students on the topic of biology. Our survey therefore sought to determine students' attitudes towards such games. As there is a lack of BEG on biology, we created a game on cytology and genetics ("It's nice to be a biologist") and checked students' attitudes towards this game as well. The survey was carried out as an anonymous online survey of students in one of Ljubljana's upper secondary school. 84 students in their second or third year participated in the survey. After the presentation of our game, they were asked to answer a questionnaire about their attitudes towards the BEG in general and towards the game in particular. Students are interested in playing BEG, with third year students showing a higher interest, regardless of gender. Students agree, at least to some extent, that the use of BEG would have a positive impact on their knowledge. They would probably find BEG a relaxing way to learn, as they would not feel uncomfortable if they were not able to answer the questions in the game. Students find our BEG "It's nice to be a biologist" useful, meaningful, interesting and fun. They would occasionally use it in many situations. Often it would be used in class when teacher is absent, but never at home for fun. Although more and more activities are now being done digitally, they would prefer to use our game in a physical (in live) format rather than on a phone or computer. In upper secondary schools in Slovenia, using educational games is more exception than the rule. An important reason for this is probably the lack of such games. We recommend the creation of such games, which should be tested in further research.
|