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

Conectar Jugando: Modern Board Games in Rural Elementary Classrooms (6-12 Years Old) to Improve Executive Function by a Randomized Controlled Trial

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cognitive Change; Child Development
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Conectar Jugando Game Program

Detailed Description

The hypotheses of the study are:

i) the experimental group will show a significantly higher improvement than the control group in the neuropsychological tasks that assess executive functions after completing the Conectar Jugando program; ii) the experimental group will show a significantly higher improvement than the control group in the academic content tasks after the intervention; iii) the experimental group will show a significantly higher improvement than the control group in the results of the evaluations carried out by their families regarding behaviors related to executive functions.

All hypotheses will be controlled for age, estimated IQ and socioeconomic level, as well as previous experience in board games and other cognitive activities.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 108
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Spain
  • Lleida, Spain, 25001
    • Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work; University of Lleida

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 5 years to 13 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 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

Exclusion Criteria:

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

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Modern board and card games group; 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; Modern Board and Card Games as Cognitive Training in Rural Elementary Classrooms
No Intervention: Wait-list group; 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.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
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 Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
ATENTO - Family (Luque & Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019)	Change in behavioral executive functions from baseline to post intervention	Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Reasoning - TONI-4 (Ruíz-Fernández, 2019)	It is a reasoning test in which series and matrices are presented that the child must complete with the available options so that the set makes sense. This measure will be used as a control variable.	Baseline
Hollingshead Index (Hollingshead, 1975)	Sociodemographic data (age, sex, school year and socioeconomic status)	Baseline
The Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) (Fogle & Mendez, 2006)	It consists of 30 items with 5 response options ranging from 1 (Disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). Two subscales have been considered: a) Play support; b) Academic focus. The Play Support subscale refers to parents' positive beliefs about the relevance of play for children's development and about their participation in play with children. High scores on this subscale indicate that parents enjoy play, prioritize play, and view it as a means of teaching. The Academic focus subscale is made up of elements about the parents' emphasis on academic skills and the belief that play can promote their development. The Academic focus subscale is made up of elements about the parents' emphasis on academic skills and the belief that play can promote their development. High scores on this subscale would indicate that parents see the academic role of play as important.	Baseline
Parent Survey of Typical Child Time Spent in Less-structured Activities (adapted from Barker et al., 2014)	In this survey, parents are asked (with the help of their children) about the time their children dedicate to less-structured and recreational activities using a using a 7-point scale (from lowest to highest frequency). High scores on each item mean a higher frequency in that activity. The sum of all the scores on each item (where 1= 'Never' and 7 = 'Daily') results in a typical less-structured activity score.	Baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 30, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 17, 2021
• Study Completion (Actual): December 17, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 24, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 24, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): March 4, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 4, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 24, 2022
• Last Verified: January 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: cognitive training; executive function; school-age children; modern board games; rural school
• Other Study ID Numbers: NCT2021CJR

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No