Abstract:

The importance that the Spanish Primary Education curriculum grants to arithmetic and calculation and the way in which this is shown in practice at school, together with didactic methodologies that hinder the proper development of skills, especially Mathematical Skills, contribute to the emergence of false beliefs about this subject, that has negative repercussions on the mathematical background of citizens later. Among the initiatives designed to overcome these difficulties and to increase the quality of Mathematics Education in compulsory educational stages, in which Primary Education is included, the problem solving-based learning ones are highlighted in literature, as problem solving stimulate observation, reflection, experimentation and analysis abilities in students.

A kind of mathematical problems with potential for teaching arithmetic and calculation in Primary Education is cryptoarithmetic. It is math puzzles which consists of elementary arithmetic operations where the whole of numbers are totally or partially encrypted by an alphanumeric, non-alphanumeric or both alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric code with the aim of discovering the hidden numbers from the rules of the code and the algorithm of the elementary arithmetic operation used as reference. Cryptoarithmetic belongs to Recreational Mathematics, a type of challenging mathematical problems perceived as games and conceived as an interesting resource for students to develop skills. However, its regular and widespread application in formal education is still far from being achieved, as research on its effects in the classroom is still scarce.

That sense of play that is intrinsic to cryptoarithmetic problems, within the framework of the current Education, which is undergoing a strong impact of ICT tools, invites to believe that the treatment of these puzzles in classroom can be enriched by using video games, a booming technology in Education because of its contributions to learning, which enhances through its playful component.

For this reason, the study presented in this paper, which is part of a wider one, analyses the effects of cryptoarithmetic puzzles, treated on a video game and on a non-digital support, on the acquisition of arithmetic and calculation skills in a sample of 91 Spanish Primary Education 6th grade students from a public school of the Autonomous Region of Madrid. The main objectives of the study is to describe the results obtained in the acquisition of arithmetic and calculation skills and to discover what differences exist in it depending on the support (digital or non-digital) on which cryptoarithmetic puzzles are treated. To achieve them, a quantitative research methodology is used. Data are collected through a pre-test and a post-test that include 40 items about arithmetic and calculation skills that are involved in solving of arithmetic puzzles, as well as implied among the objectives to be achieved at the end of Spanish Primary Education, whose the highest grade, according to the Spanish Educational System, is the 6th. This explains why the whole sample of 91 students belongs to this grade. Conclusions are shown with the results in the paper.

Keywords:

Mathematics Education, Problem Solving, ICT, Game-Based Learning, Primary Education.