‘Let’s play?’ A systematic review of board games in biology

ABSTRACT

Gamifying is related to the motivational gain and engagement of participants in these systems, even in situations not exclusively related to the creative and entertainment industry. In the Biology teaching context, motivational strategies have fundamental importance to the learning process. The aim of this work was to investigate the development and application of gamified systems, mainly board games, in Biology teaching. Through a systematic review, 39 scientific studies published in the Science Direct, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases were identified and categorised. As a result, an increased distribution of publications under this focus was observed over the analysed period. The main benefits attributed to the use of board games as a teaching-learning tool were: low cost and accessibility; wide applicability and flexibility; overcoming of communicative and cognitive barriers; improved motivation, engagement and learning; and stimulus of new experiences and skills. This study suggests that board games are a promising strategy to be used in the process of teaching-learning Biology, although some limitations can be reported.

KEYWORDS:

• Biology teaching
• gamification
• education

Acknowledgments

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) Finance Code 001.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) Finance Code [001].