Adapted digital domino game: Teaching multiplication to children

Abstract

Developing and evaluating additional tools for teaching Mathematics, such as games, can contribute to improving student engagement and, consequently, their performance. This study evaluated the effects of an adapted digital domino game, based on the stimulus equivalence paradigm, developed for teaching relationships between numerals (A), sets of dots (B), and multiplication operations with numbers (C) and in a scale format (D). Five children with low performance in solving multiplication operations participated. Numeral naming skills, set naming skills, and multiplication operations were assessed in the Pretest. Then, ABBA, ACCA, and DCCD relationships were taught and BCCB, ADDA, and DBBD relationships were tested. Probes were performed throughout the study. Categorized behavior records assessed usability and engagement in the game. All participants learned the relationships taught and showed the emergence of the tested relationships, and an increase in the percentage of correct answers for the operations in the two formats and with unknowns in the three different positions.