Clinical trial NCT05267730: Conectar Jugando: Board Games in Rural Elementary Classrooms (6-12 Years Old) to Improve Executive Functions
Official title: Conectar Jugando: Modern Board Games in Rural Elementary Classrooms (6-12 Years Old) to Improve Executive Function by a Randomized Controlled Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Cognitive Change
Child Development
Keywords: executive function
modern board games
cognitive training
school-age children
rural school
Lead sponsor: Brain In Game scientific-technical service
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Atención, Familia, Infancia, Mayores (AFIM21)
name: Mercurio Distribuciones
name: Plan of Industrial Doctorates, AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya
First posted: 2022-03-04
Enrollment: 108
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 5
Maximum age (years): 13
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Randomized controlled trial
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

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.

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

Primary outcomes:
measure: Visuospatial keep track task (Tamnes et al., 2010)
timeFrame: Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
measure: Inhibition - Child Fish Flanker Task (Benzing et al., 2018)
timeFrame: Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
measure: Shifting - Child Fish Flanker Task (Benzing et al., 2018)
timeFrame: Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
measure: PREDISCAL (Pina-Paredes et al., 2020)
timeFrame: Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: ATENTO - Family (Luque & Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019)
timeFrame: Baseline and Post-intervention (after 6 weeks)
Other outcomes:
measure: Reasoning - TONI-4 (Ruíz-Fernández, 2019)
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Hollingshead Index (Hollingshead, 1975)
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: The Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) (Fogle & Mendez, 2006)
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Parent Survey of Typical Child Time Spent in Less-structured Activities (adapted from Barker et al., 2014)
timeFrame: Baseline
Locations:
city: Lleida
country: Spain
facility: Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work; University of Lleida
Study officials:
References:
citation: Barker JE, Semenov AD, Michaelson L, Provan LS, Snyder HR, Munakata Y. Less-structured time in children's daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning. Front Psychol. 2014 Jun 17;5:593. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00593. eCollection 2014.
citation: Benzing V, Schmidt M, Jager K, Egger F, Conzelmann A, Roebers CM. A classroom intervention to improve executive functions in late primary school children: Too 'old' for improvements? Br J Educ Psychol. 2019 Jun;89(2):225-238. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12232. Epub 2018 Jun 26.
citation: Tamnes CK, Ostby Y, Walhovd KB, Westlye LT, Due-Tonnessen P, Fjell AM. Neuroanatomical correlates of executive functions in children and adolescents: a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study of cortical thickness. Neuropsychologia. 2010 Jul;48(9):2496-508. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.04.024. Epub 2010 Apr 29.
citation: Estrada-Plana V, Esquerda M, Mangues R, March-Llanes J, Moya-Higueras J. A Pilot Study of the Efficacy of a Cognitive Training Based on Board Games in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Games Health J. 2019 Aug;8(4):265-274. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2018.0051. Epub 2019 Jan 17.
citation: Estrada-Plana V, Montanera R, Ibarz-Estruga A, March-Llanes J, Vita-Barrull N, Guzman N, Ros-Morente A, Ayesa Arriola R, Moya-Higueras J. Cognitive training with modern board and card games in healthy older adults: two randomized controlled trials. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2021 Jun;36(6):839-850. doi: 10.1002/gps.5484. Epub 2021 Jan 8.
citation: Vita-Barrull N, Guzman N, Estrada-Plana V, March-Llanes J, Mayoral M, Moya-Higueras J. Impact on Executive Dysfunctions of Gamification and Nongamification in Playing Board Games in Children at Risk of Social Exclusion. Games Health J. 2022 Feb;11(1):46-57. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2021.0034. Epub 2021 Dec 24.