Can digital Mind Games be Used to Investigate Children's Reasoning Abilities?

This paper focuses on the use of digital mind games (also called puzzles or brainteasers) to investigate and assess the students' logical and reasoning abilities. It draws on LOGIVALI, a research project whose main objective was that of verifying if digital mind games can be employed with the aim of understanding and evaluating primary school children's reasoning abilities. Within the project, supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, the LOGIVALI TEST, a norm-referenced test, was designed and produced. In order to perform the validation and standardization of this test, a large- scale in-field experiment, involving 26 teachers and more than 500 primary school students (grades 4th and 5th) was carried out. Students, during school hours and under teachers' control, were asked to play individually with five mind games that had been carefully selected among mainstream free and Open Source software products. The choice of the games was made on the basis of some key criteria among which: ease of use (interface and design features); suitability to the target population and to the envisaged educational setting (e.g.: level of difficulty - time required); disciplinary competences-independence (e.g. not requiring specific mathematics or language competencies); type of feedback offered during the gaming sessions. Following the playing sessions, students were tested by means of a detailed made on - purpose evaluation test aimed at shedding light on the children's actual possession of the reasoning abilities required to solve the games at hand. At the core of the paper the LOGIVALI TEST is described and account is given of the specific abilities investigated in the test and of the methodology adopted to carry out the test validation and standardization. The major results of the project are also proposed, that, basically, account for the suitability of mind games to assess specific relevant reasoning abilities as far as children of the target age are concerned (age level 8-10). In the end, the paper briefly discusses around the main implications of the use of games-based reasoning tests. As a matter of fact, they offer an alternative frame of reference to interpret the students' level of achievement; they may, then, usefully supplement the teacher's observations/judgments and the standard /traditional measures of achievement, thus helping to provide students with more personalized and informed educational support.