A collaborative cross number puzzle game to enhance elementary students' arithmetic skills

In traditional mathematics education, students have typically been asked to solve lots of tedious and uninteresting exercises for developing the arithmetic skills of addition and subtraction. The paper provides an account of learning arithmetic skills in a more interesting way through the collaborative playing of a puzzle game. 83 students in three classes in Grade 4 were asked to solve arithmetic problems with three different methods: via playing an adapted "cross number puzzle" game on Group Scribbles (GS) collaboratively, via playing the same game on GS individually, and via the traditional method of teaching and learning, i.e. with no games at all. Analysis of the pre and post learning achievement data reveals that the two classes who played the game performed better than the control class, with the collaborative class students achieving better than the individual class students. By playing the game, low-ability students, in particular, made the most significant progress in arithmetic capability and in building up their confidence in doing arithmetic calculations.