Empowering Students with Learning Disabilities: Examining Serious Digital Games’ Potential for Performance and Motivation in Math Education

This research investigates the impact of digital math serious educational games (SEGs) on enhancing math skills and motivation, specifically focusing on first-degree equations for students with learning difficulties. A comparative study was conducted among two groups of students with learning disabilities. One group engaged with the digital math serious educational game “Battleship”, while the other received traditional curriculum-based instruction. The study’s dual objectives were to assess the effectiveness of digital math SEGs in improving mathematical performance and to evaluate motivation levels. Additionally, gender differences in performance and motivation were examined to understand how SEGs impact boys and girls differently. Employing an empirical approach, a test comprising standard exercises on first-degree equations, typically encountered in seventh grade, was administered. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was administered to measure motivation. The research sample consisted of 104 seventh-grade students with learning disabilities, aged 12–13 years, from four public schools in the northern sector of Attica, Greece. The sample was evenly divided into two groups of 52 students each. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Excel. Results indicated that students who engaged with the digital math SEG demonstrated significantly improved math performance compared to their peers who used the standard curriculum book. Interestingly, the control group, which used the standard curriculum book, reported higher levels of motivation, underscoring the complex interplay of motivational factors among students with learning disabilities. Furthermore, the analysis by gender revealed that both boys and girls benefited from SEGs in terms of performance. However, motivation levels were only slightly affected by gender, highlighting the potential of SEGs to support diverse learners.