Designing and evaluating a novel board game to improve early numerical skills

This project will develop a board game to improve young children’s numeracy.

Low achievement in mathematics has been associated with unemployment, lower earnings, poor financial planning, health and quality of life. Early mathematical skills are the strongest predictor of scholastic achievement, so interventions to improve these skills can enhance school-readiness and lay foundations for future achievement. This project will develop a board game that requires children to count backwards as well as forwards on the number line. Bidirectional counting is expected to have a greater positive effect on children’s numerical skills than one-way counting, as it emphasises the ordinal relationship between numbers. The effectiveness of this game in improving children’s levels of numeracy will be tested using a randomised controlled trial.

The researchers will work with game designers as well as a group of pre-school and Reception year children and their teachers to develop the board game iteratively. Feedback and observational data will be incorporated at each stage to ensure that the game is feasible, motivating and enjoyable for groups of 2-4 children to play in the classroom with minimal adult supervision. The researchers will recruit primary schools where at least 15% of pupils are eligible for free school meals in order to achieve a sample of 200 children. Whole classes will be randomised to three conditions: the bidirectional counting game; an identical game that only requires children to count forwards; and a non-numerical game. Prior to the intervention, each child will take part in a 25-minute session to collect basic demographic information, measure general cognitive ability and early numerical skills, and test phonological awareness as a control. Groups of children will then play the game for 30 minutes twice a week for four weeks. Finally, the mathematical and phonological awareness tests will be carried out again to assess the impact of the intervention.

The findings will be published in peer-reviewed papers and in a main public report available on the Nuffield Foundation website.