Under this initiative, announced earlier this month, nonprofit education advocacy organization Impact Florida will partner with the ed-tech company Legends of Learning and education research company WestEd to “examine the efficiency of game-based science instruction” in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of the largest K-12 districts in the U.S.
All told, about 280 science teachers and 6,000 students will participate in the study, funded by a $7.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education Innovation and Research program. Legends of Learning’s in-kind contribution is valued at more than $800,000, according to the news release.
The precise start and end dates of this research program were not disclosed, but the results are determined by scores in the fifth grade standardized science test. According to the news release, this study will build upon prior studies that have shown positive correlations between use of the Legends of Learning game platform and improved test scores.
“Students are struggling to stay engaged in school, especially post-COVID, and this has led directly to lower test scores in math and science,” Legends of Learning CEO Vadim Polikov said in a public statement. “Games have the power to change that.”
According to the news release, fifth grade science proficiency in the state of Florida decreased from 55 percent in 2018 to 47 percent in 2021.
“Increasing engagement is important to student academic growth, and we’re eager to see how game-based learning can tap into students’ existing interests,” Impact Florida President Mandy Clark said in a public statement.
The Legends of Learning website says the company offers more than 2,000 math and science lessons that are aligned with state curriculums and used by more than 100,000 teachers across 1,000-plus school districts.
A WestEd 2020-2021 research report located on the Legends of Learning site details findings where more than 14,000 students in grades 4-8 from a large and diverse school district in the southeastern region of the United States used the Legends of Learning platform, tallying 91,000 hours of engagement over 336,000 games played and 2.1 million assessment questions answered. Comparisons were based on levels of use. The study indicated that students who played Legends of Learning the most finished the year in the 68th percentile of academic achievement in science, compared to the 49th percentile for students who used it less, and the 45th percentile for those who didn't use it at all.
