Impact of a Gamified Experience on the Promotion of Historical Thinking in Primary Education

Abstract

The use of active methodologies in the teaching-learning process is increasing in popularity. However, with regard to History, this is not the case. Nevertheless, History teaching trends emphasise the importance of their integration to achieve a practical and student-centred learning process to encourage students to develop skills such as reflection and critical thinking. The acquisition of these competences along with knowledge about History is known as historical thinking. In this quantitative study, a gamification methodology was compared to a lecture-based one. To this aim, over the period of a unit of work, two groups from two different schools participated in the study. Results show that, although both groups had the same knowledge before the intervention, the gamification group performed at a significantly higher academic level after it. In addition, a reduced version of the instructional material motivational survey, which was given to the gamification class before and after the intervention, verified that students prefer the gamification dynamic compared to their usual lessons.