Gamified co-design with cooperative learning (GaCoCo): Socio-emotional correlates in primary school students

Both relevance and diffusion of technology within the schools is steadily increasing, but scarce attention is paid to the links between children’s active participation in designing technological products and the socio-emotional correlates. We conducted a 5-session intervention using the “GAmified CO-design with COoperative learning” (GaCoCo) method with 35 third and fourth-graders. It aimed at building the capacities to conceptualize, develop, and evaluate a game prototype through GaCoCo techniques. The game creation started reading a narrative and continued transferring narrative elements, e.g. characters. We measured the intensity of achievement emotions, as conceptualized by the control-value theory, and pre and post-intervention peer acceptance. Analyses of variance revealed higher intensity for positive compared to negative emotions and for females, but no differences between the intermediate GaCoCo session and a parallel traditional lesson. Intensity of negative emotions experienced in the first 3 sessions correlated negatively with post-intervention peer acceptance. Acknowledging limitations, we discuss the key role of knowledge co-construction and related psychological processes in building children’s developing abilities. Our findings can help in planning interventions focused on teaching computational thinking while taking into account children’s socio-emotional experiences, which previous research has shown to be important determinants of educational outcomes.