Impacto de la gamificación con TIC en la enseñanza de las ciencias sociales en estudiantes de cuarto grado de primaria

Abstract

The concept of gamification applied in the educational field has a positive impact in the students’ motivation and behavior in learning. The purpose of this article is analyzing what was the impact of gamification using ICT on fourth graders’ academic performance in Social Studies subject. In order to carry out this research, several pedagogical strategies and learning theories reviews were searched. The mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, that implies collecting and analyzing quantitative and then qualitative data, was chosen. This type of study has validity and reliability criteria. A group control was needed in order to compare pretest and posttest results. SPSS 11.0 software was used for the qualitative data analysis and Atlas.ti tool was implemented for the qualitative data analysis. The result demonstrated that there is a significant difference the means of the scores obtained in the pretest and the posttest. At the same time there is an improvement in the climate of the classroom, learners' participation in class was higher and they were more motivated. We highlight the teachers’ proposal in regards to the use of gamification ICT tools for planning, motivating, learning and assessing along with the successful gamification experiences exchange in other knowledge fields.It is concluded that the use of gamified strategies represents a positive contribution to teaching dynamics, useful for improving academic results in social sciences.