Teacher Framing and Student Mathematical Experiences During Game-Based Learning

Abstract

Mathematical games are widely used in primary classrooms and consistently associated with high student engagement, yet evidence for their effects on mathematical learning remains inconclusive. This study examines whether differences in teacher framing, conceptual versus procedural, are associated with differences in students’ mathematical experiences during game-based lessons. While prior research has documented how teacher framing shapes teacher-student interactions during gameplay, this study extends this work by examining the student side of the equation: how framing is associated with students’ affect, their perceptions of what they are learning, and the quality of their spontaneous mathematical reasoning with peers. Drawing on student-written reflections (n = 95), student interviews, and video-recorded student-to-student interactions (n = 20 focal students) across five Year 3/4 classrooms in Victoria, Australia, the study uses directed content analysis and interaction coding to examine students’ affect, perceived mathematical learning, and student-to-student mathematical reasoning across two framing conditions. Findings indicate that framing shaped not only how much students enjoyed the games but what they believed they were learning and how they reasoned with peers. Among positive-reason responses, challenge and thinking were cited more often in conceptually than procedurally framed classrooms (34% vs. 11%). Among neutral or negative responses that included a codable reason, boredom or confusion was less common in conceptually than procedurally framed classrooms (30% vs. 72%). Students in conceptually framed classrooms also described the mathematics in richer conceptual terms, referring to factors and prime numbers (18% vs. 1%) and arrays (18% vs. 5%). Mathematical reasoning interactions were approximately 1.7 times as frequent in conceptually framed classrooms, with Connecting interactions, in which students explicitly linked gameplay to broader mathematical ideas, occurring more than six times as frequently as in procedurally framed classrooms. Conceptual framing also appeared to distribute productive challenge more equitably across the class. The findings suggest that teacher framing may function as a key mediating variable between game design and student learning, with implications for professional learning and game-based pedagogy. Findings are exploratory and best understood as generating hypotheses for more controlled future investigation.