Abstract

FERREIRA, Dores; PALHARES, Pedro  and  SILVA, Jorge Nuno. Investigating the relationship between the game Traffic Lights and patterns. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2013, n.25, pp.73-93. ISSN 1645-7250.

Games have been triggering researcher’s interest to verify whether their practice brings benefits to the development of abilities. This interest emerges, probably, from the motivating characteristics of playing in general and from the fact that certain types of games involve cognitive skills during practice. These characteristics took them to be considered facilitating agents of mathematics teaching and learning. The ability to identify patterns is equally viewed as essential to this process, as it is considered as intrinsic to mathematics activity. In this paper we will present the major steps of a study conducted within a sample of primary school students, involving the game ‘Traffic Lights’, as well as some results. As major results from this study, we have verified the existence of a relationship between strength of play and the ability to identify patterns. We have also verified the existence of a relationship between these variables and the grades obtained on the national exams in mathematics. We have also found that one class subjected to the game systematic practice has differed significantly from the control group.

Keywords : Mathematical games; patterns; co-relational study; quasi-experimental study.

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