Happy Maths: Reducing Maths Anxiety with Game-based Learning
Year Awarded
2022
Amount
€209,138
- Organisation:Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin)
Project Summary
Happy Maths is a programme for primary school students and teachers to raise awareness about Maths Anxiety and how game-based learning can mitigate its effects.
Maths Anxiety (MA) is “a debilitating negative emotional reaction towards mathematics” affecting 1 in 6 students. It is more severe in girls than boys, thereby worsening the existing problem of gender inequality in STEM education.
Happy Maths adopts a dual approach. Firstly, the pupils engage with digital Maths educational games over a 6-week-programme. The aim is not only to increase pupils’ maths abilities, but specifically to use the power of games to engage disadvantaged and anxious pupils and mitigate the negative effects of Maths Anxiety. Secondly, the Happy Maths programme includes workshops to enhance teachers’ awareness of MA and how game-based learning can foster a more anxiety-free maths education.
The uniqueness of Happy Maths is that the award-winning games used in the programme were entirely developed by the applicants.
The ongoing project, currently funded by Discover, has been delivered to 40 classrooms and about 1100 students, and is already the largest controlled intervention to mitigate Maths Anxiety (MA) to date. The data driven evaluation of our ongoing project shows how Ireland has a level of MA comparable to other European countries, but a higher-then-average gap between male and female students (24.6% higher in girls) and a significant gap (13.1%) between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged schools. More importantly, data shows how our games are effective in significantly improving maths abilities and reducing perceived MA.