Gamification and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in

Learning Mathematics: A Case Study

Raffaella Folgieri

1 a

Maria Elide Vanutelli

1 b

, Paola De Vecchi Galbiati

and Claudio Lucchiari

1 b

Department of Philosophy, Università Statale di Milano, via Festa del Perdono 7, Milan, Italy

Disruptive Innovation in Education, Chinese American Scholars Association, NYC, U.S.A.

Keywords: Gamification, Coding, Augmented Didactics, Self-learning, Math Empowerment, Robotics.

Abstract: This paper describes a pilot educational project made in a Primary School in Italy (Scuola Primaria

Alessandro Manzoni at Mulazzano, Milan) implemented in 2016 and 2017. The project was born from a

specific request: the school aimed at improving the results achieved by students aged 7 during the National

Tests for Mathematics since they registered performances lower than the National Average. In this context,

we supported teachers providing information tools and methods to improve performances. Our aim was to

develop new game-oriented approaches to problem-solving, mixing our different experiences and

competences (organization design, information technologies, psychology). We provided a broader spectrum

of parameters tools and keys to understand how to achieve an inclusive approach personalized on students,

involving them and their teachers in the project. This cooperative approach allowed us to collect interesting

observations about learning styles, pointing out the negative impact that standardized processes and

instruments can have on self-esteem and consequently on the performance of pupils. We argue that addressing

pupils in considering mathematics as continuous research and development can increase their performances

in National Tests execution. Children free to realize their own experiments and observations dramatically

improve their involvement and curiosity about Mathematics.

1 INTRODUCTION

In Italy, students are required to take the INVALSI

(Istituto Nazionale per la VALutazione del Sistema

dell'Istruzione) test. INVALSI is an Italian

government institution that submits the annual

standard tests to every Italian school in order to

evaluate the National Education System. The tests are

formulated following the European guidelines, and

they are standard, focused on Italian (language and

literature) and Mathematics.

According to National Education Programs, the

learning objectives for the second grade of primary

school students:

 Acquiring a positive attitude towards

mathematics.

 Guessing how the mathematical tools are used and

useful in day-by-day practice.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0589-5275

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9452-802X

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9349-1707

 Being confident in mental arithmetic with the

natural numbers.

 Understanding texts involving logical and

mathematical aspects.

 Describing the procedure to follow in problem

solving and recognizing the different solution

strategies.

 Reasoning with assumptions supporting their

ideas and comparing different points of view with

classmates.

 Developing cooperative and collaborative

attitudes.

INVALSI tests represent a big deal for students,

always stressed by being assessed (Pagani and

Pastori, 2016). Also for this reason, results might not

correspond the real skills. Thus, the aim of the present

work was to help them improving their performance

at the INVALSI test by developing Information

506

Folgieri, R., Vanutelli, M., Galbiati, P. and Lucchiari, C.

Gamiﬁcation and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in Learning Mathematics: A Case Study.

DOI: 10.5220/0007800105060513

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019), pages 506-513

ISBN: 978-989-758-367-4

Technologies Supports and Game-oriented teaching

strategies.

Our education approach may be effective in

reaching specific educational aims (e.g. math skills),

empowering psychosocial, and developing more

general thinking skills, which might be included in

the wide construct of creativity (Lucchiari et al.,

2018). In order to think creatively, it is crucial to

enable children to live rich experiences, so to enhance

imagination, provide different perspectives and

nourish flexible thinking. In order to develop

creativity and imagination in a child it’s vital to

provide stimuli and methods to connect them by

different angles. In this way, school-based activities

will allow children to approach problems in a variety

of disciplines as well as everyday life (Rogers, 2012).

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) highpoints creativity as one of

the most important learning goals for the 21st century

(Lucas et al., 2013).

Several studies highlighted the importance of the

creation of an appropriate learning environment,

especially aimed at promoting and support students’

creativity and divergent thinking (Lucchiari et al.,

2019). Here we are suggesting that technologies and

cognitive psychology may cross-fertilize educational

sciences in order to produce inspiring learning

environments.

2 METHODS

2.1 Participants

The study was conducted at the Primary School

“Alessandro Manzoni”, in Lodi (Mi), Italy with 7-

years old students, whose registered performances

were lower than the National average, showing the

need to increase their interest in scientific disciplines.

The project involved 23 boys and 23 girls of two

different secondary Classes (24 children in a class and

in 22 children in the other). Also, 3 teachers were

involved. They were not new to innovative projects

since they already realized innovative lessons in past

years developing interdisciplinary projects using

mathematics as a “meta-language” (Coltman, 2007;

Llinares and Valls, 2010; De Vecchi et al., 2016).

2.2 Tools

Several didactic games were developed to help

students to overcome the fear of the test and to find a

personal key to apply a problem-solving approach to

scientific disciplines. Specifically, we composed

didactic materials for teachers, consisting of

laboratorial programs on specific lessons oriented to

involve students in subject-related experiments in the

classroom and some tests allowing teachers to better

understand students’ features (Entwisle and

Ramsden, 2015).

Overall, in designing the laboratories we

considered the need to:

 give space to meta-reasoning to link what is being

done now with the general educational activities

(in some cases even with the INVALSI tests);

 promote the participation of all, even in different

moments;

 increase the psychomotor activation, motivation,

and curiosity through some actual playing time;

 use the "thinking aloud" of children as a basis for

the study (Short et al., 1991);

 increase the number of specific feedback even in

different ways (emotional, cognitive);

 always differentiate between medium / long-term

objectives and short ones.

A set of maths trials has been used to assess maths

skills.

The test we have used was based on the

assumption that mathematical competence is a

multidimensional construct. It is, therefore, important

to explore all of these dimensions, albeit through

short sub‐ scales. In particular, we have evaluated the

following dimensions:

2.3 Procedure

The first step of the project consisted of a cognitive

and psycho-social analysis of the classes, conducted

with the support of the teachers. Then, we observed if

students’ behaviour related to psychological and

cognitive parameters correlated to the mathematical

skills. All the information collected allowed us to

design a gamification strategy to help students to find

their personalized approach to mathematics. We will

focus on those involving technological tools.

2.3.1 The Observation Phase

During the observation phase, we incouraged teachers

and pupils to use computers, Interactive Whiteboards

(LIM) and the game Angry Birds, to verify if these

technological tools could help to catch the children’s

attention in order to empower their learning skills

(Papadakis, 2018). Many of the students already

knew the game and the characters, so they could have

been easily involved in the activities, also soliciting

comments and generalizations. Moreover, in each

Gamiﬁcation and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in Learning Mathematics: A Case Study

507

class, the teachers immediately identified a pupil able

to work on computers, initially supported by the

teachers and after autonomously, acting as a helper

for the other students, according to a peer-to-peer

support approach (Herrera et al., 2007). In this

scenario, the teachers assumed the role of “primus

inter pares” instead of being a sole guide.

Figure 1: A lesson with Interactive Whiteboards and

personal computers.

The aim of applying these tools consisted in

teaching children the algorithmic thought that is the

ability to organize a series of instructions to achieve

a simple goal. This approach stands at the basis of the

so-called computational thinking, already studied in

literature in the light of coding tools such as Scratch

(Papadakis et al., 2016). Computational Thinking is,

indeed, important to develop the ability to organize

the instructions to perform specific tasks. In general,

the concept of computational thinking is not to be

understood in a legal way, as a kind of higher thought,

more free, creative, heuristic. In our vision, the

development of a computational thinking approach

must be considered as a powerful way to improve

performance in logical-mathematical tasks and, more

generally, in the formal problem-solving.

2.3.2 Phase1: Coding and Robotics

Laboratories

Most children’s problems especially in INVALSI test

consists of the so-called "narrative" problems, i.e.

those problems where narrative text hides the requests

for calculation. This kind of problems causes anxiety

to children (often even to adults) because the required

steps to find a solution to the problem are not easy to

identify. We faced the challenge of how to teach

pupils to extract meaningful data and to apply the so-

called "algorithmic mentality", that is the ability to

break down the main problem in a series of sequential

(or not) steps, connected to each other, to come to the

final solution. This latter is the definition of a coding

activity. Indeed, coding, in general, allows teaching

the algorithmic approach in a practical and funny

way, allowing children to create something.

Moreover, in robotics coding is even more intuitive

and simple, because it becomes concrete (children

can see the result of the programming directly

through the robot's actions).

Considering literature, we chose to run two

laboratories, based on Scratch programming

(Papadakis et al., 2017; Papadakis et al., 2018;

Papadakis and Kalogiannakis, 2017) and on Lego

Mindstorm robotics kit. To start coding activities and

orient them to our purposes, we created some

examples of transformation of INVALSI problems in

activities to be realized through Scratch and through

the robot kit. The activities have been designed to

help children to train and develop on one hand

problem analysis skills and ability in the

decomposition of problems in simpler steps

(algorithmic mentality and problem-solving); on the

other visuospatial abilities.

Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) is a free online

platform developed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute

of Technology), specifically designed for children in

early school years. Through Scratch, children are able

to create interactive stories, animations, and games.

Coding is realized by blocks (simple pre-constituted

modules). Scratch conveys the concepts of sequence

and interactions of actions to be implemented,

allowing children to create even complex

instructions. This approach allows learners to

separate the essentials of a problem from the

narrative, presenting the question visually.

Compared to other platforms, i.e. Code, Scratch

requires greater involvement of the students. The

problem is not presented by the teacher but it

spontaneously arises, as a creative process, soliciting

the development of attitudes in individuating and

analyzing a problem, and researching a solution (the

problem-solving approach). The teacher can simply

illustrate some projects to the students, also asking

them to replicate these examples.

Programming by block in Scratch does not require

to retain anything by memory, Students will only

need to remember the basic concepts (what a sprite is,

the possible actions, and so on). Then, recognizing the

corresponding blocks and positioning them in the area

on the right side of the stage, they can setup and test

the programming steps. All the objects are “self-

explanatory”.

We asked teachers to prepare the lessons

following some specific steps:

 Show students several examples of projects,

different in goals to achieve. In this way, teachers

can stimulate children in proposing their own

project to realize (formulating the problem);

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

508

 Make visual representations of the problem on

paper. Although the first attempt is not clear, the

idea will be described in the steps the children

think they need to realize it.

 Choose one problem for each student and, where

there are not enough computers, organize small

groups. Every group should realize the project

 Publish the projects on the Scratch website, to

motivate children and to trace their progress.

The teacher acted only as a tutor leaving full

autonomy to children. In fact, a cognitive activity lead

by personal motivation produces longer lasting

results in terms of the development of logic,

mathematics and scientific intelligence (Schiefele,

1991).

Children were then ready to design and realize

autonomously their projects.

Lego Mindstorm, instead, is a kit providing all it

is needed to create real robots that perform the actions

planned by the learners. The kit includes a free visual

programming tool (EVE) that can be easily used by

the children of the first classes of primary schools to

code even complex robot actions, after an

introduction by the teacher (Papadakis and Orfanakis,

2017). On the Lego Mindstorm website, users can

find videos, instructions, specifications of the blocks,

that are the "units" that, connected together in a visual

way, allow to completely program the actions of a

robot. It is also possible to apply to the First Lego

League Jr and participate in several contests

(http://fll-italia.it/junior/2015/), motivating, in this

way, children and enhancing their ability to compare

with others, developing group cooperation to achieve

a result. The Lego Mindstorm community is very

active and therefore the content available, from which

to take inspiration for classroom activities, are many.

From a methodological point of view, we devoted

both the Scratch and the Lego Mindstorm laboratories

to transpose visual-oriented, geometry and physics

quizzes from the INVALSI test in coding, since these

latter are compatible with coding activities.

In the Lego Mindstorm kit, a visual programming

tool (EVE) is included. As in Scratch, EVE is a block-

based visual programming environment, so both

students and their teachers become confident with the

new tool very quickly, due to an analogy-based

approach.

In the activities made with the Lego Mindstorm

kit, there has been no direct connection with the

INVALSI’s quizzes, because no problem could be

directly translated in robotics. Moreover, all the

activities performed with the robotics kit have been

helpful to acquire and consolidate visual-spatial abili-

ties and the problem-solving approach.

The labs consisted in a first step in introducing

EVE to children, starting from analogy with Scratch.

This step was essential, to reinforce their ability to

proceed following the analogic approach.

In a second step, children have been guided in

building the robots suggested on the kit manual. This

practical activity was performed to reinforce the

visual-spatial skills and the ability to follow a

procedure, decomposing it in simple actions, that is

what students are required in reading and

understanding the INVALSI test.

Finally, students associated the actions

programmed with EVE to a robot, to make concrete

the result of their work. Following some simple

instruction we provided them, expressed as they were

short INVALSI test.

2.3.3 Project Phase2: Gamification

After Phase 1, we developed a set of laboratories

involving children and teachers at various stages:

graphics design, selection of mathematical games,

test development, and game rules’ improvement. This

activity required a great investment of time and

resources, but it allowed to integrate different

disciplines: Italian language, art and design,

mathematics and computer science helping children

to train and enhance several intelligence forms:

creative, synthetic, logical, linguistic, spatial,

collaborative.

We developed several coding sessions inspired by

INVALSI tests with teachers and we observed fear

and boredom that many children perceive when they

face an "examination" as INVALSI will be

dramatically reduced using these devices and

applying the game approach. Playing games, children

will get used to address INVALSI questions, they will

understand the language, the pitfalls and the

resolution keys, just as they do when they play using

APPs like: Dino Dog – A Digging Adventure, or

Mickey's Magical Maths World, or Secret Society, or

other games.

We applied Gamification approach to reduce

pupils stress and fear of mathematics. We used game

mechanisms to engage children in solving

mathematical problems as "game challenges".

Coding and Lego made the application of

gamification very simple, as it allowed us to play with

mathematics using reality as a test field. The sessions

designed in this first phase allowed us to produce

immediate feedback for pupils and teachers.

Moreover “gamificating” math exercises the students

had the opportunity to repeat the games several times,

Gamiﬁcation and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in Learning Mathematics: A Case Study

509

becoming familiar with numbers, operators and

mathematical concepts (Hamari et al., 2014).

During this second phase of the project, teachers

have been introduced also to the use of Brain

Computer Interface (BCI) as a cognitive device to

boost and empower learning. BCIs are EEG-based

headsets simplifying the EEG medical device

(Allison et al., 2007). Born in the context of gaming,

non-invasive, they allow to collect electrival brain

signal from the scalp of an individual through wet or

dry sensors. The collected signal are then transformed

into commands or analysed for research purposes.

BCIs are low cost, as accurate as the medical devices,

Wi-Fi or bluethoot connecte to a computer to collect

and analyse brain rhythms. For these reasons, this

cognitive technology presents a high portability and

don not cause any discomphort in individuals wearing

them, allowing a wide movement freedom in the

experimental environments. Following literature

(Başar et al., 1999), EEG-based BCIs collect the same

medical device rhythms, namely alpha (7 Hz – 14

Hz), associated to meditation, relaxation; beta (14 Hz

– 30 Hz), related to attention, active thinking,

concentration levels; delta (3 Hz – 7 Hz), registered

in children and associated with continuous attention

activity (Leeb et al., 2006); theta (4 Hz – 7 Hz),

generally related to emotional engagement (Cameli et

al., 2016); gamma (30 Hz – 80 Hz), indicating a

cognitive interpretation of multi-sensory signals. The

possibility to collect the above brain rhythmsmakes

BCIs particularly suited to investigate the

mechanisms of learning, memory and attention,

isolating reactions to specific stimuli (Bait and

Folgieri, 2013). Indeed, these devices have been

widely used in research, such as in registering the

response to musical and visual stimuli and recognize

the emotional valence (Folgieri et al., 2014; Folgieri

et al., 2013; Folgieri and Zichella, 2012(a); Folgieri

and Zichella, 2012 (b)); to study the process of visual

creativity (Folgieri et al., 2014); in evaluating the

emotive and cognitive response to stimuli, as in

response to colors (Wiggs and Martin, 1998; Folgieri

et al., 2015), to stereoscopy and monoscopy (Calore

et al., 2012) and also the cognitive response to visual-

perceptive stimuli (Banzi and Folgieri, 2012 (a);

Folgieri and Zampolini, 2014), based on the concept

of priming (Banzi and Folgieri, 2012(b); Soave et al.,

2016).

Within the second phase of the project, we

introduced BCIs in some practical lessons, to show to

the teachers the great potentiality of these cognitive

technology to empower learning skills in students,

working on memory, attention and concentration.

Then, we used the didactic games provided with the

Neurosky (http://neurosky.com/) headset to show

students the visualization of their attention and

concentration levels during a game. In this way,

students had a feedback (a bar indicating the level of

attention) on their ability and became more conscious

of their cognitive status.

3 RESULTS

3.1 Observation Phase

From the described activity, we observed that

students had difficulties in encoding their own

thoughts. Indeed, the generalization process did not

appear linear. For instance, the transition from the

instruction "take a step forward" to "turn left"

appeared to be mediated by a complex understanding

process. We, thus, made two considerations:

 The children need not only to achieve a specific

outcome (i.e., "capture the pig and roast it"), but

they also need to consolidate this result over time,

through repeated trials and level advancements.

Moreover, the children’s approach seemed to be

heuristic-exploratory, driven by curiosity rather

than by the search for a logical basis.

 The association with the INVALSI test appears

more evident in this case. Thus, we hypothesized

that the development of formalization strategies

could allow children to face the problem-solving

tasks present in the INVALSI test. Indeed, we

argue that, to achieve this goal, children need to

consolidate the proceduralization (through

routines useful to address the problems, according

to the instruction sequences) in order to

understand the representation of a problem and,

then, generalize the approach.

Interesting enough, during this didactic game-

oriented activity, when children found new solving

mechanisms, they spontaneously formulate meta-

cognitive comments, suggesting them also to the

teacher. Easily distractible children have been

involved by others and the achievement of a

milestone in the game acted as a reward and

reinforcement for all the students, who were free to

express emotionally themselves (they rejoice).

We considered these observations with the final

aim of improving children’s performance in the

INVALSI test. Since the results of any mathematical

test are mediated by emotional and motivational

aspects, which often act in a negative way, the

INVALSI tests, regarded as not funny and difficult in

their format, are generally associated to negative

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

510

attitudes. Even students with high skills could "fail"

simply due to a lack of motivation, causing a decrease

in the levels of attention and inhibiting children's

ability to find connections between the test’s quizzes

and the acquired skills. In this context, and on the

basis of the observation made in the preliminary

phase, we found out that students need to be

supported in the development of a "situated thought",

that is in finding a connection between the test’s

quizzes and their cognitive abilities. In addition,

children must learn to implement situated meta-

cognitive strategies, i.e. they should be able to

recognize cognitive resources required by a task as

previously faced in other tasks.

Starting from our observations, we designed

coding laboratories, taking into account that the

problem of "representation" is the central issue for

children to solve problems.

3.2 Phase 1

Scratch allowed learners to separate the essentials of

a problem from the narrative, presenting the question

visually. In this way, students could overcome the

fear when reading a “narrative” problem and their

performance, as measured on selected INVALSI

quizzes, improved of about the 40%. In addition, by

joining the community of Scratch, teachers, and

learners could share their experience. This latter

possibility increases the children’s motivation and

helps them to develop group cooperation attitudes,

allowing them to achieve better results. Challenges

become an integral part of learning.

The gaming approach allowed children to

overcome any fear about the INVALSI test. In two

weeks, they started to “decode” on their own the

information given by the quizzes, thanks to the

abilities acquired conding (not only logic and

problem-solving approach to mathematical and

scientific problems in general, but also visual-spatial

abilities).

The activities involving the use of the Lego

Mindstorm kit also addressed significant

considerations. Considering the young age of the

students and that the teachers were not expert in

coding, the visual programming tool (EVE) included

in the kit represented a convenient choice. Moreover,

the visual approach also recalled Scratch to students,

allowing them to feel confident also in programming

a robot.

Creating a robot from scratch allowed learners to

make concrete the scientific subjects, which lose their

abstract characteristic. Algorithmic thinking and

problem solving, indeed, are naturally part of the

learning skill needed to design and develop both the

robots’ hardware (the physical appearance) and the

software procedures (the actions, made possible by

visual programming block).

In the activities made with the Lego Mindstorm

kit, there has been no direct connection with the

INVALSI’s quizzes, because no problem could be

directly translated in robotics. Moreover, all the

activities performed with the robotics kit have been

helpful to acquire and consolidate visual-spatial

abilities and the problem-solving approach. Indeed,

since EVE is a visual programming environment,

structuring robots’ actions such as movements helped

students to develop and empower their visual-spatial

skills. In addition, the physical realization of a robot,

made of Lego bricks, allowed students to design the

solution, before realizing the physical object. This

could reinforce both the problem-solving approach

and the visual-spatial skills and the ability to predict

the effectiveness of the final realization.

3.3 Phase 2

The Phase 2 of our project consisted in a preliminary

test of the coding and gamification approach and

outcomes collection is still in fieri. During this

preliminary stage we obtained some interesting

results by using BCIs. Indeed, in the first attempts to

succeed in the games provided with the Neurosky

headset, only the 30% of the students were able to

pilot the characters of the games through the required

task, because they were distracted by their

schoolmates or not able to really focus on the

objective of the game itself. After three lessons, 100%

of students learned how to concentrate on the game

goal. We registered, also, the improvement of their

ability to focus. At the beginning the 30% of the

students was able to achieve a 70% of attention

(relatively to the visual bar proposed by the games)

and the remaining 70% was in the interval 20-40% of

focus. After three lessons, the 87% of the students

was able to achieve a 80% and the remaining 13%

was in the range of 55-79%.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The project gave us interesting hints. The differences

between the two involved classes allowed the

development of dynamics able to support the

children’s personal development.

We registered homogeneous performances in both

the classes. This means that the interdisciplinary and

cooperative work made by the teachers allowed to

Gamiﬁcation and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in Learning Mathematics: A Case Study

511

reciprocally potentiate, facilitating learning path

whose result will be evident in a very short time.

Targeting personal empowerment and not only to

acquire specific skills allowed children to go deepen

in personal excellences arisen from the project.

In education, gamification is a powerful mean,

allowing propagation of learning, development, and

dissemination of knowledge. This is achieved by

involving children in creating games and problems,

using reality as a testing ground, in our specific case

also including mathematics, and in it, dealing with

INVALSI Tests (Dicheva et al., 2015).

All the classes and the laboratories implemented

were based on gamification (Hamari et al., 2014) and

we observed the following outcomes:

 produced immediate feedback

 allowed the repetition of activities

 aroused intrinsic motivation

 provided a multidisciplinary perspective

 gave the possibility of a future self-replication

These gamification characteristics reduce anxiety and

boredom and provide positive emotion in learning,

letting students replicate the self-learning process

(Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).

The "apparent passivity" of teachers pushed

children searching for autonomous solutions, trying

and learning from their own mistakes thus developing

a problem-solving-oriented approach. (Gardner and

Davis, 2013). The "try and error” method helps

children to reduce "test and evaluation anxiety” and

to increase their curiosity (Montessori, 2008; Munari,

2004).

This case study highlighted that the construction

of educational tools and processes based on the

gamification and integration of different disciplines

favour the harmonious growth of the individual. The

application of gamification to education enables rapid

and harmonious development of self-awareness, self-

adaptation and self-learning. Due to its success, the

project followed up, and teachers and students have

been involved in even more complex coding

activities.

We argue that the key of gamification consists in

enhancing our natural attitude to approach real

problems. In a next step, we’ll increase the difficulties

children will have to face, just like when playing

games, also involving students in a game design.

The students involved in the present study are

currently in the fifth class of Primary School and we

are waiting the results of the INVALSI test that will

take place in June 2019. The original group of pupils

is working well in math and the students show even

more autonomy. They are currently taking part to the

Transalpine Mathematical Rally

(http://www.armtint.org/index.php) and to The

Computer Science Bebras (https://www.bebras.it/).

The last simulation (February 2019) made by

these student (now aged 10) were satisfactory and,

above all, the students in difficulty have performed

very well.

REFERENCES

Allison, B. Z., Wolpaw, E. W., Wolpaw, J. R., 2007. Brain-

computer interface systems: progress and prospects.

Expert review of medical devices, 4(4), pp. 463-474.

Bait, M., Folgieri, R., 2013. English Language Learning

and Web Platform Design: The Case of Dyslexic Users.

International Journal of Innovation in English

Language Teaching and Research, 2(2), p. 177.

Banzi, A., Folgieri, R., 2012. EEG-based BCI data analysis

on visual-priming in the context of a museum of fine

arts. In International Conference on Distributed

Multimedia Systems, Knowledge Systems Institute, pp.

75-78. (a)

Banzi, A., Folgieri, R., 2012. Preliminary results on

priming based tools to enhance learning in museums of

fine arts. In Electronic imaging & the visual arts: EVA

2012 Firenze University Press, pp. 142-147. (b)

Başar, E., Başar-Eroğlu, C., Karakaş, S., Schürmann, M.,

1999. Are cognitive processes manifested in event-

related gamma, alpha, theta and delta oscillations in the

EEG?. Neuroscience letters, 259(3), pp. 165-168.

Calore, E., Folgieri, R., Gadia, D., Marini, D., 2012.

Analysis of brain activity and response during

monoscopic and stereoscopic visualization. In

Proceedings of IS&T/SPIE’s 24th Symposium on

Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology, San

Francisco, California.

Cameli, B., Folgieri, R., Carrion, J. P. M., 2016. A Study

on the Moral Implications of Human Disgust-Related

Emotions Detected Using EEG-Based BCI Devices. In

Advances in Neural Networks, Springer International

Publishing, pp. 391-401

Csikszentmihalyi, M., 2014. Applications of flow in human

development and education. Dordrecht: Springer.

Coltman, P., 2007. Talk of a number: self‐regulated use

of mathematical metalanguage by children in the

foundation stage, Early Years, 26:1, pp. 31-48.

De Vecchi Galbiati, P., Folgieri, R. and Lucchiari, C., 2017.

Math empowerment: a multidisciplinary example to

engage primary school students in learning

mathematics. Journal of Pedagogic Development,

volume 7, sse 3, pp. 44-58.

Dicheva, D., Dichev, C., Agre, G., Angelova, G., 2015.

Gamification in education: a systematic mapping study,

Educational Technology, JSTOR

Entwistle, N. and Ramsden, P., 2015. Understanding

student learning (routledge revivals). Routledge.

Folgieri, R., Bergomi, M. G., Castellani, S., 2014. EEG-

based brain-computer interface for emotional

involvement in games through music. In Digital Da

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

512

Vinci, pp. 205-236. Springer New York.

Folgieri, R., Lucchiari, C., Cameli, B., 2015. A Blue Mind:

A Brain-Computer Interface Study on the Cognitive

Effects of Text Colors. British Journal of Applied

Science & Technology, Vol.: 9, Issue: 1.

Folgieri, R., Lucchiari, C., Granato, M., Grechi, D., 2014.

Brain, Technology and Creativity. BrainArt: A BCI-

Based Entertainment Tool to Enact Creativity and

Create Drawing from Cerebral Rhythms. In Digital Da

Vinci, pp. 65-97. Springer New York.

Folgieri, R., Lucchiari, C., Marini, D., 2013. Analysis of

brain activity and response to colour stimuli during

learning tasks: an EEG study. In Color Imaging:

Displaying, Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications,

p. 86520I.

Folgieri, R., Zampolini, R., 2014. BCI promises in

emotional involvement in music and games. Computers

in Entertainment (CIE), 12(1), 4.

Folgieri, R., Zichella, M., 2012. A BCI-based application in

music: Conscious playing of single notes by

brainwaves. Computers in Entertainment (CIE), 10(1),

1. (a)

Folgieri, R., Zichella, M., 2012. Conscious and unconscious

music from the brain: design and development of a tool

translating brainwaves into music using a BCI device.

In 4th International conference on applied human

factors and Ergonomics: proceedings. CRC press. (b)

Gardner, H., Davies, K., 2013. The APP Generation,

English I Edition, New Haven, Yale University Press.

Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., Sarsa, H., 2014. Does gamification

work? a literature review of empirical studies on

gamification, Hawaii International, ieeexplore.ieee.org

Herrera, C., Grossman, J.B., Kauh, T.J., Feldman, A.F. and

McMaken, J., 2007. Making a difference in schools:

The Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring

impact study. Public/Private Ventures.

Leeb, R., Keinrath, C., Friedman, D., Guger, C., Scherer,

R., Neuper, C., ... Pfurtscheller, G., 2006. Walking by

thinking: the brainwaves are crucial, not the muscles!.

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments,

15(5), pp. 500-514.

Llinares, S., Valls, J., 2010. Prospective primary

mathematics teachers’ learning from on-line

discussions in a virtual video-based environment,

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, April

2010, Volume 13, Issue 2, pp 177–196.

Lucas, B., Claxton, G., Spencer, E., 2013. Progression in

Student Creativity in School: First Steps Towards New

Forms of Formative Assessments. OECD Education

Working Papers, 86(86), 45.

Lucchiari, C., Sala P., Vanutelli, M. E., 2018. Promoting

creativity through transcranial direct current

stimulation (tDCS). A critical review. Frontiers in

behavioral neuroscience, 12, 167.

Lucchiari, C., Sala, P. M., Vanutelli, M. E., 2019. The

effects of a cognitive pathway to promote class creative

thinking. An experimental study on Italian primary

school students. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 31, pp.

156-166.

Montessori, M., 2008. Spontaneous Activity in Education,

English I Edition, Oxford, Benediction Classics

Munari, B., 2004. Laboratori Tattili (Tactile Experiments),

Italian II Edition, Mantova, Corraini.

Pagani, G. Pastori V., 2016. What Do You Think about

INVALSI Tests? School Directors, Teachers and

Students from Lombardy Describe Their Experience.

Journal of Educational, Cultural and Psychological

Studies (ECPS Journal) 13: 97.

Papadakis, S., 2018. The use of computer games in

classroom environment. International Journal of

Teaching and Case Studies, 9(1), 1-25. 10

Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M., 2017. Using

Gamification for Supporting an Introductory

Programming Course. The Case of ClassCraft in a

Secondary Education Classroom. In Interactivity,

Game Creation, Design, Learning, and Innovation.

Springer, Cham, pp. 366-375.

Papadakis S., Kalogiannakis, M., 2018. Using Gamification

for Supporting an Introductory Programming Course.

The Case of ClassCraft in a Secondary Education

Classroom. In A. Brooks, E. Brooks, N. Vidakis (Eds).

Interactivity, Game Creation, Design, Learning, and

Innovation. ArtsIT 2017, DLI 2017. Lecture Notes of

the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics

and Telecommunications Engineering, Switzerland,

Cham: Springer, vol 229, pp. 366-375.

Papadakis S., Orfanakis V., 2017. The Combined Use of

Lego Mindstorms NXT and App Inventor for Teaching

Novice Programmers. In: Alimisis D., Moro M.,

Menegatti E. (Eds.), Educational Robotics in the

Makers Era. Edurobotics 2016.

Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M., Orfanakis, V., Zaranis,

N., 2017. The Appropriateness of Scratch and App

Inventor as Educational Environments for Teaching

Introductory Programming in Primary and Secondary

Education. International Journal of Web-Based

Learning and Teaching Technologies (IJWLTT), 12(4),

pp. 58-77. doi:10.4018/IJWLTT.2017100106

Papadakis, St., Kalogiannakis, M., Zaranis, N., 2016.

Developing fundamental programming concepts and

computational thinking with Scratch, Jr in Preschool

Education. A case study. International Journal of

Mobile Learning and Organisation, 10(3), pp. 187-202.

Rogers, C., 2012. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s

View of Psychotherapy.

Schiefele, U., 1991. Interest, learning, and motivation,

Educational psychologist, 26(3-4), pp.299-323.

Short, E. J., Evans, S. W., Friebert, S. E., Schatschneider,

C. W., 1991. Thinking aloud during problem solving:

Facilitation effects. Learning and Individual

Differences, 3(2), pp. 109-122.

Soave, F., Folgieri, R., Lucchiari, C., 2016. Cortical

correlates of a priming-based learning enhancement

task: A Brain Computer Interface study.

Neuropsychological Trends.

Wiggs, C. L., Martin, A., 1998. Properties and mechanisms

of perceptual priming. Current opinion in

neurobiology, 8(2), pp. 227-233.

Gamiﬁcation and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in Learning Mathematics: A Case Study

513