From Chance to Strategy: Advancing Educational Games About Vertebrates for Elementary Students

This study describes the iterative redesign of an educational board game intended to teach Grade 4 and older elementary students to classify vertebrates into fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The original game, Amass Me, relied heavily on dice-rolling and a dichotomous key. Testing with 29 Grade 4 students produced an average post-test score of 83.8 percent, statistically above an 80 percent benchmark, but expert and student feedback identified excessive chance, limited strategy, cumbersome symbols, and long play sessions as problems. The authors responded with a redesigned game, Vertebrate Auction, which shifts emphasis toward trait observation, bidding-based strategic selection, shared target cards, and a tiered scoring system.

The work follows a design-based research approach across two phases, with data gathered through classroom observation, informal interviews, post-game assessments, and expert playtesting. Experts from science education, teaching, and game design were consulted, and student participants aged 10 to 13 provided feedback on the revised version. Expert comments were grouped into themes covering scoring complexity, fairness of point allocation, overall presentation, and player interaction. Student feedback highlighted difficulty tracking points, challenges identifying animals from images without prior knowledge, and positive perceptions of the game's educational value.

The findings suggest that reducing reliance on chance, adding observation-based tasks, and creating shared goals can enhance engagement and support classification learning, though the revised version was evaluated mainly through qualitative feedback rather than controlled outcome measures. Reported limitations include scoring complexity, imbalanced point rewards for certain targets, and difficulty for students with limited background knowledge. The authors recommend further study of long-term learning outcomes, scalability across diverse schools, and integration into broader science curricula.