Strategy Instruction and Maintenance of Basic Multiplication Facts through Digital Game Play

Formative instruction on multiplication primarily focuses on rote memorization. This leads to factual fluency, but also develops a narrow view of multiplication and hinders the development of conceptual understanding. Theory and research recommend the concurrent development of conceptual understanding and factual fluency during the initial stages of learning about multiplication. Woodward (2006) conducted a field study to investigate this instructional approach and found a significant difference between those who received instruction on multiplicative properties and timed-drills of multiplication facts on a conceptual measure than those who only spent time on timed drills. This study investigated the efficacy of integrating the same approach within a digital game. There was a significant decrease between pre- and post- measures of participants timed retrieval of multiplication facts, but no differences were found between conditions on pre- and post-measures of conceptual understanding. These findings indicate that special attention must be paid to intrinsic integration of instructional content in order to address conceptual understanding through digital game play.