Strategic Thinking Through Game-Based Learning: The Educational Board Game "Princess of the Silk Road"

A quasi-experimental study examines whether a culturally localized educational board game, "Princesses of the Silk Road," can strengthen strategic thinking among elementary school students. The authors argue that strategic thinking is a key 21st-century competency, yet traditional teacher-centered classrooms, particularly in Iran, offer limited opportunities for students to practice anticipating consequences, making evidence-based decisions, and revising strategies. The game was designed so that its mechanics map onto six components of strategic thinking: future thinking, evidence-based decision making, delayed response, strategy revision, goal setting, and mental modeling.

The study enrolled 40 female fourth-grade students aged 9 to 10 from a single public primary school, randomly assigned to an experimental group (n=20) that completed twelve 45-minute gameplay sessions and a control group (n=20) that received standard instruction. Measures included the BRIEF-2 self-report inventory and a Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire, both adapted and validated for Iranian students, with analysis performed by ANCOVA controlling for pre-test scores. Results showed statistically significant gains in the experimental group across all six components (p < 0.05), with large effect sizes for goal setting and problem decomposition (partial η² = 0.42), future thinking (0.40), and several other components, and a smaller but significant effect for delayed response and reflective thinking (0.11). Triangulated qualitative data from student reflections, interviews, and researcher observations described a shift from impulsive to more deliberate, multi-step planning.

The authors acknowledge important limitations, including the small, single-school, all-female sample, the absence of longitudinal follow-up, reliance on self-report and observer judgments, and the lack of control for variables such as prior gaming experience. The findings are therefore presented as preliminary evidence that culturally grounded, goal-oriented board games may be a valuable instructional tool in elementary education.