Engagement in play is vital for children to learn 21st-century skills, especially problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, focused attention, and collaboration (Hillman et al., 2014; Singer, 2015; Yogman et al., 2018). These require developing executive functioning skills crucial for school readiness and success. Play fosters brain…

To Brian Sutton-Smith's catalogue of seven play rhetorics in his influential work, "The Ambiguity of Play," the author adds an eighth category--the rhetoric of computational play, connecting the research field of game studies with other forms of play studies. By proposing this rhetoric, Sicart seeks to consolidate the relation between…

This book explores analogue game-based learning in the context of the Anthropocene, addressing an urgent need for educational approaches beyond traditional scholastic boundaries. In the context of a complex world, the book emphasises the inadequacies of current educational methods and the potential of game-based learning to foster collective…

Designing games from the ground up is a popular activity for helping students think in designerly ways. Despite their benefits, such game design activities may place higher-than-anticipated demands on cognitive and institutional resources. In an effort to alleviate these demands, this study explored how playing and fixing partially completed games…

This perspective piece explores the transformative potential and associated challenges of large language models (LLMs) in education and how those challenges might be addressed utilizing playful and game-based learning. While providing many opportunities, the stochastic elements incorporated in how present LLMs process text, requires domain…

Math learning in early childhood is critical for later success, as it is predictive of mathematical and academic achievement through adolescence. Therefore, developing engaging and effective methods for early math instruction are important. Math games are a common method for teaching math in a way that is motivating and engaging for young children…

Empirical research highlights the benefits for the development of children's mathematical competencies when they play linear number board games with dice and receive feedback. We, therefore, investigated mathematical competencies in two training studies with six sessions and a 3 × 2 design. The sample in the first experiment consisted of N = 79…

Game based-learning have been widely promoted to overcome the difficulties encountered by beginners to learn programming. However, there are many issues to address for the implementation of game-based learning. Indeed, game-based learning is not limited to adding game elements such as rewards to a learning situation, but it rather consists of…

The aim of the study is to develop a Likert-type scale to determine the play preferences of children attending pre-school education. The research was designed and carried out according to the survey research model. Data collected from 3 different study groups were used in the scale development process. The study groups consist of parents of…

Research on the educational value of play tends to focus on active players, especially when evaluating novel interaction technologies. However, a long history of scholarship underscores observing communal practice as a primary means of enculturation and learning. This paper demonstrates learning opportunities available within a range of…

The COVID-19 pandemic had far-reaching effects on school-going children. With the indefinite closure of schools in many parts of the world, many children found themselves with limited avenues for play and interaction. The current qualitative study, anchored on social capital theory, aimed at investigating the informal learning that took place as…

The increasing screen time and digital distractions in modern education have underscored the need for innovative approaches to early childhood learning that reconnect children with the natural world. This study investigates the integration of cooperative learning methods in nature within the "Mathematics and Environmental Exploration"…

The authors describe Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) 2.0, a five-year summer intervention designed to increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among mostly Black high school students in Chicago. The program features public health fundamentals and game design using principles of systems thinking, social-cognitive…

The role of school has drastically changed over the past several decades. Standards and added subjects lead to a challenging and narrow view of education. The consequences of added pressure undermine the role of play throughout K-12 school systems. Research studies continue to describe play as vital for the success of children's development and…

Early foreign language teaching has recently been made compulsory in Finland, making this an area open to development and innovation where policy-makers and teachers play a significant role in creating new kinds of learning environments, operating cultures, and pedagogy for foreign language learning. This article discusses the early foreign…