Board in Class?...Game On! The Effectiveness of Board Games on Students' Sense of Belongingness and Knowledge in the Classroom

Abstract

This research is important because it can establish whether playing board games can increase feelings of belongingness and academic performance. This knowledge can help instructors engage their students in the classroom. Students that engage in the classroom will be more academically motivated during class time as well as having a higher level of belongingness in and outside of the classroom. The main purpose of this study is to measure college students' sense of belongingness and comprehension of content knowledge through the use of educational board games. A nutrition themed educational board game was created to help form a space for social interactions and academic motivation. This article found slight increases within the pre-board game and post-board game belongingness surveys. As well as a slight increase in percent correct on the pre-board game and post-board game learning assessments. Upon further analysis the data was found to be not significant when comparing the pre-board game and post-board game data. More future research should be conducted to further investigate if educational board games can be implemented in classroom settings to increase sense of belongingness and comprehension of content knowledge. An experiment that can be conducted to further this research is to see if board games enhance comprehension of content across multiple subjects. The belongingness survey can then be conducted with a wider subject pool and across a longer span of time to get more data to correlate social interactions and belongingness.