Learning music and math, together as one: Towards a collaborative approach for practicing math skills with music

Abstract

In this paper we present a study that took place in an elementary school in Mexico. The study aimed to explore the use of a digital application for the design and orchestration of collaborative, game-based learning activities for STEAM and to study the impact of group formation with respect to students’ background knowledge. In particular, our goal was to support students in practicing math skills using music in a series of workshops. The workshops took place in the form of a tournament where groups of students worked together to win sets of music and math rounds. We formed groups based on students’ background knowledge in math and we explored the impact of group formation with respect to students’ background knowledge on learning gains – as assessed in pre and post knowledge tests – and game score. The results indicate that homogeneous groups outperformed heterogeneous groups in terms of learning gains but heterogeneous groups achieved better results in terms of game score than homogeneous groups. The former does not confirm related research and it may suggest that the group formation impact on learning gains depends largely on the context. The latter may indicate the need for aligning the game objectives with learning goals in order to ensure that educational games indeed prioritize learning.