Conectar Jugando: Board Games in Rural Elementary Classrooms (6-12 Years Old) to Improve Executive Functions

Child Development Clinical Trial

— CJ-Rural  

Official title:

Conectar Jugando: Modern Board Games in Rural Elementary Classrooms (6-12 Years Old) to Improve Executive Function by a Randomized Controlled Trial

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05267730
• Other study ID #: NCT2021CJR
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 30, 2021
• Est. completion date: December 17, 2021

Study information

• Verified date: January 2022
• Source: Brain In Game scientific-technical service
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The use of board games in classrooms has been increasing in recent years. Education and psychology professionals have found in the board game a way to train some key cognitive processes for good academic development: executive functions. Recent research has obtained promising results using modern board games as a neuroeducational intervention in children and old people (Benzing et al., 2018; Estrada-Plana et al., 2019; Estrada-Plana et al., 2020; Vita-Barrull et al., 2022). However, there is still little evidence of its cognitive and academic benefits in typically developing school-age children. Given that it is a methodology that, due to its dynamism and flexibility, could be adapted to different developmental levels, it has been proposed to study the possible effects on executive functions and academic skills of a classroom intervention based on board games with school children from rural areas of Spain (6-12 years). An experimental group will carry out the game program Conectar Jugando, which will be guided by the teachers themselves, through stable game groups of 3-4 students. On the other hand, a control group will develop the classes in a habitual way without the inclusion of board games and will be compensated at the end of the evaluations. The students of each center will be randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group.

Description:

The hypotheses of the study are:

i) the experimental group will show a significantly higher improvement than the control group in the neuropsychological tasks that assess executive functions after completing the Conectar Jugando program; ii) the experimental group will show a significantly higher improvement than the control group in the academic content tasks after the intervention; iii) the experimental group will show a significantly higher improvement than the control group in the results of the evaluations carried out by their families regarding behaviors related to executive functions.

All hypotheses will be controlled for age, estimated IQ and socioeconomic level, as well as previous experience in board games and other cognitive activities.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 108
• Est. completion date: December 17, 2021
• Est. primary completion date: December 17, 2021
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 5 Years to 13 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• be enrolled in a rural educational center, whether public, private or subsidized

• provide informed consent from both parents and the participant's agreement to participate in the study

Exclusion Criteria:

• comprehension difficulties due to language reasons

• sensory difficulties that make it impossible to carry out the program activities

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Child Development
• Cognitive Change

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Conectar Jugando Game Program
Modern Board and Card Games as Cognitive Training in Rural Elementary Classrooms

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Spain	Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work; University of Lleida	Lleida

Sponsors (4)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Brain In Game scientific-technical service	Atención, Familia, Infancia, Mayores (AFIM21), Mercurio Distribuciones, Plan of Industrial Doctorates, AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Spain, 

References & Publications (6)

Barker JE, Semenov AD, Michaelson L, Provan LS, Snyder HR, Munakata Y. Less-structured time in children's daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning. Front Psychol. 2014 Jun 17;5:593. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00593. eCollection 2014. — View Citation

Benzing V, Schmidt M, Jäger K, Egger F, Conzelmann A, Roebers CM. A classroom intervention to improve executive functions in late primary school children: Too 'old' for improvements? Br J Educ Psychol. 2019 Jun;89(2):225-238. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12232. Epub 2018 Jun 26. — View Citation

Estrada-Plana V, Esquerda M, Mangues R, March-Llanes J, Moya-Higueras J. A Pilot Study of the Efficacy of a Cognitive Training Based on Board Games in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Games Health J. 2019 Aug;8(4):265-274. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2018.0051. Epub 2019 Jan 17. — View Citation

Estrada-Plana V, Montanera R, Ibarz-Estruga A, March-Llanes J, Vita-Barrull N, Guzmán N, Ros-Morente A, Ayesa Arriola R, Moya-Higueras J. Cognitive training with modern board and card games in healthy older adults: two randomized controlled trials. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2021 Jun;36(6):839-850. doi: 10.1002/gps.5484. Epub 2021 Jan 8. — View Citation

Tamnes CK, Østby Y, Walhovd KB, Westlye LT, Due-Tønnessen P, Fjell AM. Neuroanatomical correlates of executive functions in children and adolescents: a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study of cortical thickness. Neuropsychologia. 2010 Jul;48(9):2496-508. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.04.024. Epub 2010 Apr 29. — View Citation

Vita-Barrull N, Guzmán N, Estrada-Plana V, March-Llanes J, Mayoral M, Moya-Higueras J. Impact on Executive Dysfunctions of Gamification and Nongamification in Playing Board Games in Children at Risk of Social Exclusion. Games Health J. 2022 Feb;11(1):46-57. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2021.0034. Epub 2021 Dec 24. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Reasoning - TONI-4 (Ruíz-Fernández, 2019)	It is a reasoning test in which series and matrices are presented that the child must complete with the available options so that the set makes sense. This measure will be used as a control variable.	Baseline
Other	Hollingshead Index (Hollingshead, 1975)	Sociodemographic data (age, sex, school year and socioeconomic status)	Baseline
Other	The Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) (Fogle & Mendez, 2006)	It consists of 30 items with 5 response options ranging from 1 (Disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). Two subscales have been considered: a) Play support; b) Academic focus. The Play Support subscale refers to parents' positive beliefs about the relevance of play for children's development and about their participation in play with children. High scores on this subscale indicate that parents enjoy play, prioritize play, and view it as a means of teaching. The Academic focus subscale is made up of elements about the parents' emphasis on academic skills and the belief that play can promote their development. The Academic focus subscale is made up of elements about the parents' emphasis on academic skills and the belief that play can promote their development. High scores on this subscale would indicate that parents see the academic role of play as important.	Baseline
Other	Parent Survey of Typical Child Time Spent in Less-structured Activities (adapted from Barker et al., 2014)	In this survey, parents are asked (with the help of their children) about the time their children dedicate to less-structured and recreational activities using a using a 7-point scale (from lowest to highest frequency). High scores on each item mean a higher frequency in that activity. The sum of all the scores on each item (where 1= 'Never' and 7 = 'Daily') results in a typical less-structured activity score.	Baseline
Primary	Visuospatial keep track task (Tamnes et al., 2010)	Change in visuospatial updating from baseline to post intervention. It consists of 9 trials of increasing difficulty in which colored faces move across the screen and it is necessary to remember the last position of each one.	Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
Primary	Inhibition - Child Fish Flanker Task (Benzing et al., 2018)	Change in inhibition from baseline to post intervention. It is an adaptation of the classic Flanker Task in which fish must be fed by pressing the key that indicates the direction of the central fish. The inhibition measure is obtained by subtracting the reaction time of the pure block of congruent tests (5 fish going in the same direction) from the standard block that includes congruent and incongruent tests (the 4 fish that accompany the central fish can go in the same direction or the opposite)	Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
Primary	Shifting - Child Fish Flanker Task (Benzing et al., 2018)	Change in shifting from baseline to post intervention. To obtain this measure, a mixed block is included in the fish flanker task in which trials of yellow fish and trials of red fish appear. When the fish are red, the central fish should be fed. When the fish are yellow, the fish from the sides should be fed. For both conditions, congruent and incongruent tests are presented. The subtraction of the reaction time from the standard block (only congruent and incongruent reds) to the mixed block (reds and yellows) gives rise to the shifting measure	Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
Primary	PREDISCAL (Pina-Paredes et al., 2020)	Change in academic competences from baseline to post intervention. Screening test that assesses Reading Fluency, Mathematical Fluency and Calculus in three timed written tasks	Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
Secondary	ATENTO - Family (Luque & Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019)	Change in behavioral executive functions from baseline to post intervention	Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)