25 Secondary Mathematics trainee teachers participated in this study in July 2008.
They were selected at the time of the launch of the Bowland Maths materials
(National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, 2008). Bowland
Maths materials include examples of GBL which were designed to support the
Mathematics teaching in Key Stage 3. The data collection protocol of the study was
designed as a role-playing activity; the researcher who organised the data collection
played the facilitator role, while all trainees played the roles of subject matter expert
in the study. The trainees listed their perceived potential of GBL in a five-minute
brainstorming session. Then, they were directed to identify and justify the learning
idea ranked as having most potential by answering the following questions:
• What is your top ranked potential of game-based learning for your
students??
• Why do you choose it as the top ranked?
• What would you want the chosen GBL to be like?
• When could be the best time to use the chosen GBL for your students?
• Where the best setting for the chosen GBL could be situated?
• Who would benefit if you developed the chosen GBL idea
successfully?
After that, a guided self-evaluation session was done using De Bono’s (2000)
Six Thinking Hats.
After the data collection, NVivo was utilised to prepare the data for qualitative
analysis. Three analysis techniques were used in this study: pattern matching,
narrative text coding, and logical model mapping. The pattern matching technique
was used to juxtapose the trainees’ perception with the potential identified through
literature review. After that, the data was classified typologically using a narrative
text coding approach, to investigate how trainees justified their perception. A logical
model mapping technique was used to identify the possible gaps of knowledge and
skills possessed by the trainees in producing their GBL.
Findings
The trainees generated 95 ideas, and they ranked their ideas based on the
perceived potential. Table 1 shows the typology of top ranked ideas, classified using
Bloom’s (1974) three learning domains of educational objectives