In education, one size fits all is no longer recommended. Over the past two decades or so, it has become common to explore different types of learning approaches. The more research is done, the more apparent is becomes that an active- and play-based curriculum helps the majority of students learn and engage with the subject matter. (See previous examples of the periodic table of superheroes and the fossil-finding board game).
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have just added to the list with the publication of a study that shows “Basketball Mathematics” has a positive effect on students’ desire to learn more, provides them with an experience of increased self-determination and grows math confidence.
In the study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, the research team worked with 756 first through fifth grade students from 40 different classes in the Copenhagen (Denmark) area. Once a week for six weeks, half of the group participated in Basketball Mathematics during gym class, while the other half played traditional basketball.
Basketball Mathematics had the students collecting numbers and performing calculations associated with various basketball exercises. For example, a student would count how many times they could make a basket from 3 meters vs. 1 meter, and subsequently add up the numbers.
“The underlying intention is that the children should have the feeling of becoming better, for example, at scoring points and/or solving the math assignments,” the researchers write in their paper. “Implicit in the assignments is that the children have to think, reflect, talk and use the language of math, which can help them in verbalizing math terminology and become confident with it.”
According to the study results, the students who played basketball while learning math had significantly higher levels of perceived autonomy, competencies and motivation. The students demonstrated a 14% increase in self-determination compared with traditional classroom teaching, as well as a 6% better understanding of the mathematical concepts studied.
Most importantly, the results show student’s motivation for Basketball Mathematics was 16% higher compared to its classroom-based counterpart. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that Basketball Mathematics can maintain students’ motivation over a six-week period, whereas students in the control group showed significant decrease in motivation as time went on.
The researchers say motivation is an important contributor to academic success, playing an especially central role when learning mathematics. Thus, they called the findings that Basketball Mathematics had a positive effect on student’s intrinsic motivation “remarkable,” saying it further supports initiatives to integrate physically active play with curriculum-based academic tasks.
“It could be that Basketball Mathematics endows children with a sense of ownership of their calculations and helps them clarify and concretize abstract concepts, which in turn increases their motivation to learn mathematics through Basketball Mathematics," said co-author and Ph.D. student Linn Damsgaard.
The model is inherently feasible for the majority of public schools. A physical education class once per week would be needed, as well as two hoops per class and one basketball for every four students. Additionally, scale up is easy in terms of lesson frequency, intensity and in relation to the structure of the activities.
In the activity described earlier, for example, rather than a student adding how many baskets she/he made from 3 meters vs. 1 meter, older, more advanced students could multiple or divide the numbers. Learning different angles via arm position when shooting or team movement during drills could be also be appropriate for older students.
The research team will continue to investigate the effect of Basketball Mathematics on student motivation and performance. Eventually, they said, they hope to inspire teachers and principals to prioritize more physical activity and movement into all subjects.
“The aim is that schools in the future will include ‘Active English’ and ‘Active Mathematics’ in the weekly schedule as subjects where physical education and subject-learning instructors collaborate to integrate this type of instruction with the normally more sedentary classwork,” concluded first author Jacob Wienecke.
Photo: Children running a relay race as part of the Basketball Mathematics. Credit: Allan Jørgensen/University of Copenhagen