Conectar Jugando: Board Games in Rural Elementary Classrooms (6-12 Years Old) to Improve Executive Functions

NCT05267730 | Completed DMC

• 1 other identifier: NCT2021CJR
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 108
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The use of board games in classrooms has been increasing in recent years. Education and psychology professionals have found in the board game a way to train some key cognitive processes for good academic development: executive functions. Recent research has obtained promising results using modern board games as a neuroeducational intervention in children and old people (Benzing et al., 2018; Estrada-Plana et al., 2019; Estrada-Plana et al., 2020; Vita-Barrull et al., 2022). However, there is still little evidence of its cognitive and academic benefits in typically developing school-age children. Given that it is a methodology that, due to its dynamism and flexibility, could be adapted to different developmental levels, it has been proposed to study the possible effects on executive functions and academic skills of a classroom intervention based on board games with school children from rural areas of Spain (6-12 years). An experimental group will carry out the game program Conectar Jugando, which will be guided by the teachers themselves, through stable game groups of 3-4 students. On the other hand, a control group will develop the classes in a habitual way without the inclusion of board games and will be compensated at the end of the evaluations. The students of each center will be randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group.

Conditions

Cognitive Change; Child Development

Keywords

executive function; modern board games; cognitive training; school-age children; rural school

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (4)

• Visuospatial keep track task (Tamnes et al., 2010)

  Change in visuospatial updating from baseline to post intervention. It consists of 9 trials of increasing difficulty in which colored faces move across the screen and it is necessary to remember the last position of each one.

  Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)

• Inhibition - Child Fish Flanker Task (Benzing et al., 2018)

  Change in inhibition from baseline to post intervention. It is an adaptation of the classic Flanker Task in which fish must be fed by pressing the key that indicates the direction of the central fish. The inhibition measure is obtained by subtracting the reaction time of the pure block of congruent tests (5 fish going in the same direction) from the standard block that includes congruent and incongruent tests (the 4 fish that accompany the central fish can go in the same direction or the opposite)

  Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)

• Shifting - Child Fish Flanker Task (Benzing et al., 2018)

  Change in shifting from baseline to post intervention. To obtain this measure, a mixed block is included in the fish flanker task in which trials of yellow fish and trials of red fish appear. When the fish are red, the central fish should be fed. When the fish are yellow, the fish from the sides should be fed. For both conditions, congruent and incongruent tests are presented. The subtraction of the reaction time from the standard block (only congruent and incongruent reds) to the mixed block (reds and yellows) gives rise to the shifting measure

  Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)

• PREDISCAL (Pina-Paredes et al., 2020)

  Change in academic competences from baseline to post intervention. Screening test that assesses Reading Fluency, Mathematical Fluency and Calculus in three timed written tasks

  Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• ATENTO - Family (Luque & Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019)

  Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)

Other Outcomes (4)

• Reasoning - TONI-4 (Ruíz-Fernández, 2019)

  Baseline

• Hollingshead Index (Hollingshead, 1975)

  Baseline

• The Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) (Fogle & Mendez, 2006)

  Baseline

Study Arms (2)

Modern board and card games group

EXPERIMENTAL

Conectar Jugando Game Program: The program consisted of 12 one-hour intervention sessions. The sessions were biweekly with a total duration of 6 weeks. The modern board and card games used in the program were Bee Alert (Knizia, 2012), Monster Match (Gruhl \& Weir, 2018), Kaleidos Junior (Albertarelli, 1997), Sherlock Express (Kermarrec, 2019), Alles Kanone! (Knizia, 2007), Halli Galli (Shafir, 1990), Bananazul (Warsch, 2019), Blurble (Bernard, 2013), La Morada Maldita (Ortiz, 2020), Dice Academy (Gobert, 2019) and Streams (Itsubaki, 2011). Play sessions will be held in subgroups of 3-5 children within the class group. In each session, each subgroup will play two games. The games used in the program have an average duration of approximately 20-30 minutes (filler games). All subgroups will play all games in the program the same number of times with the same rules. The game program will be the same in all participating centers to guarantee the homogeneity of its implementation

Behavioral: Conectar Jugando Game Program

Wait-list group

NO INTERVENTION

Wait-list. They will do the usual classes without modern board games. At the end of the postintervention evaluation, the Conectar Jugando Game Program will be implemented under the same conditions as the experimental group.

Interventions

Conectar Jugando Game Program BEHAVIORAL

Modern Board and Card Games as Cognitive Training in Rural Elementary Classrooms

Modern board and card games group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 5 Years - 13 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• be enrolled in a rural educational center, whether public, private or subsidized
• provide informed consent from both parents and the participant's agreement to participate in the study

You may not qualify if:

• comprehension difficulties due to language reasons
• sensory difficulties that make it impossible to carry out the program activities

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Brain In Game scientific-technical service: lead
• Atención, Familia, Infancia, Mayores (AFIM21): collaborator
• Mercurio Distribuciones: collaborator
• Plan of Industrial Doctorates, AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work; University of Lleida

Lleida, 25001, Spain

Location

Related Publications (6)

• Barker JE, Semenov AD, Michaelson L, Provan LS, Snyder HR, Munakata Y. Less-structured time in children's daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning. Front Psychol. 2014 Jun 17;5:593. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00593. eCollection 2014.

  PMID: 25071617 BACKGROUND

• Benzing V, Schmidt M, Jager K, Egger F, Conzelmann A, Roebers CM. A classroom intervention to improve executive functions in late primary school children: Too 'old' for improvements? Br J Educ Psychol. 2019 Jun;89(2):225-238. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12232. Epub 2018 Jun 26.

  PMID: 29947142 BACKGROUND

• Tamnes CK, Ostby Y, Walhovd KB, Westlye LT, Due-Tonnessen P, Fjell AM. Neuroanatomical correlates of executive functions in children and adolescents: a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study of cortical thickness. Neuropsychologia. 2010 Jul;48(9):2496-508. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.04.024. Epub 2010 Apr 29.

  PMID: 20434470 BACKGROUND

• Estrada-Plana V, Esquerda M, Mangues R, March-Llanes J, Moya-Higueras J. A Pilot Study of the Efficacy of a Cognitive Training Based on Board Games in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Games Health J. 2019 Aug;8(4):265-274. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2018.0051. Epub 2019 Jan 17.

  PMID: 30653355 BACKGROUND

• Estrada-Plana V, Montanera R, Ibarz-Estruga A, March-Llanes J, Vita-Barrull N, Guzman N, Ros-Morente A, Ayesa Arriola R, Moya-Higueras J. Cognitive training with modern board and card games in healthy older adults: two randomized controlled trials. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2021 Jun;36(6):839-850. doi: 10.1002/gps.5484. Epub 2021 Jan 8.

  PMID: 33275804 BACKGROUND

• Vita-Barrull N, Guzman N, Estrada-Plana V, March-Llanes J, Mayoral M, Moya-Higueras J. Impact on Executive Dysfunctions of Gamification and Nongamification in Playing Board Games in Children at Risk of Social Exclusion. Games Health J. 2022 Feb;11(1):46-57. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2021.0034. Epub 2021 Dec 24.

  PMID: 34962161 BACKGROUND

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: Randomized controlled trial

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: February 24, 2022
• First Posted: March 4, 2022
• Study Start: September 30, 2021
• Primary Completion: December 17, 2021
• Study Completion: December 17, 2021
• Last Updated: March 4, 2022

Record last verified: 2022-01

Locations

ES (1)