Using Online Gaming as a Teacher Test Prep Model for Mathematics

Abstract

In 2015, North Carolina's Division of Teacher Licensure instituted a new licensure examination modeled after the MTel for all elementary education majors. With the new examination came a new minimum passing score of 227. The importance of having a thorough understanding of the mathematics content is expected, yet teacher preparation programs struggle to help elementary pre-service teacher candidates who enter undergraduate programs without the solid mathematics foundations needed to be successful in passing the North Carolina General Curriculum Mathematics Licensure test. With this problem serving as the backdrop, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine if utilizing Lost Functions, an online gaming program developed by ATLT Gaming 2010, could serve as an innovative methodology to prepare teacher education candidates for the General Curriculum Mathematics Licensure test in elementary mathematics, possibly resulting in improved performance outcomes.