Browsing by Author "Hakala, Marjatta"

Aims. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of Lola's World educational game on children's early numeracy skills learning. Previous studies indicate that early numeracy skills are important for later mathematical skills development. Thus, it is fundamental to support these skills already in kindergarten. Core numerical skills before school age include non-symbolic and symbolic number sense, counting skills, basic skills in arithmetic and understanding mathematical relations. Some children show weak performance already in their early numeracy skills. These weaknesses can partly be explained with factors such a cognitive skills or socio-economic background. According to previous research short mathematical computer-assisted interventions have demonstrated positive effects on children's learning. Methods. Thirty-three children between 5 and 6 years, from four kindergartens, took part in this study. Twenty-three children were split randomly in two groups. One group (n = 12) played Lola's World focusing on early numeracy skills and other group (n = 11) was an active control group that played Lola's ABC Party that focused on language skills. Rest of the children (n = 10) served as a passive control group and they did not play any games during the intervention phase. Intervention continued three weeks and children played Lola Panda -games every day for about 15 minutes. Children's numeracy skills were measured using Early numeracy test and their nonverbal reasoning skills were assessed with Raven test. Analysis was done mostly using one-way ANOVA. Results and conclusions. There was a positive development of early numeracy skills during the intervention, but it was not statistically significant in any of the groups. Children's numeracy skills increased most in Lola's ABC Party group and the least changes were measured in Lola's World group. Children whose homelanguage was Finnish had better numeracy skills than children whose homelanguage was other than Finnish. Because there was a strong negative correlation between playing time and numeracy performance it seems that the intervention was not appropriately supporting early numeracy skills development. Perhaps it is also possible that Early numeracy test was not sensitive enough or Lola's World does not improve all skills included in the test.