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

Study Overview
=================
Brief 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.

Detailed 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.

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

Conditions
-----------------
Cognitive Change, Child Development

Intervention / Treatment
-----------------
* Behavioral: Conectar Jugando Game Program


Participation Criteria
=================
Eligibility Criteria
-----------------
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

Ages Eligible for Study
-----------------
Minimum Age: 5 Years
Maximum Age: 13 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
-----------------
All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
-----------------
Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
=================
How is the study designed?
-----------------

Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: Randomized controlled trial
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Modern board and card games group<br>Conectar Jugando Game Program: The program consisted of 12 one-hour intervention sessions. The sessions were biweekly with a total duration of 6 weeks. The modern board and card games used in the program were Bee Alert (Knizia, 2012), Monster Match (Gruhl & Weir, 2018), Kaleidos Junior (Albertarelli, 1997), Sherlock Express (Kermarrec, 2019), Alles Kanone! (Knizia, 2007), Halli Galli (Shafir, 1990), Bananazul (Warsch, 2019), Blurble (Bernard, 2013), La Morada Maldita (Ortiz, 2020), Dice Academy (Gobert, 2019) and Streams (Itsubaki, 2011). Play sessions will be held in subgroups of 3-5 children within the class group. In each session, each subgroup will play two games. The games used in the program have an average duration of approximately 20-30 minutes (filler games). All subgroups will play all games in the program the same number of times with the same rules. The game program will be the same in all participating centers to guarantee the homogeneity of its implementation | Behavioral: Conectar Jugando Game Program<br>* Modern Board and Card Games as Cognitive Training in Rural Elementary Classrooms<br>|
| No Intervention: Wait-list group<br>Wait-list. They will do the usual classes without modern board games. At the end of the postintervention evaluation, the Conectar Jugando Game Program will be implemented under the same conditions as the experimental group. | |

What is the study measuring?
-----------------
Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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) | 
| 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) | 
| 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) | 
| 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 Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ATENTO - Family (Luque & Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019) | Change in behavioral executive functions from baseline to post intervention | Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks) | 

 Terms related to the study
=================
Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
-----------------
executive function, modern board games, cognitive training, school-age children, rural school