Prediction of learning improvement in mathematics through a video game using neurocomputational models

Learning math is important for the academic life of students: the development of mathematical skills is influenced by different characteristics of students such as geographical position, economic level, parents’ education, achievement level, teacher objectives, social level, use of information and communication technologies by teachers, learner motivation, gender, age, preferences for playing video games, and the school year of the students. In this work, these previously mentioned characteristics were considered as the attributes (inputs) of a multilayer neural network that uses a backpropagation algorithm to predict the percentage of improvement in mathematics through a 2D mathematical video game that was developed to allow the children to practice addition and subtraction operations. After applying the neural model, using the twelve attributes mentioned before and the backpropagation algorithm, there was a network of one layer with ten neurons and another network of two layers wit h 5 neurons in the first layer and 20 neurons in the second layer. Both architectures produced a mean squared error smaller than 0.0069 in the prediction of the student’s percentage of improvement in mathematics, being the best configurations found in this study for the neural model. These results lead to the conclusion that we are able to predict the percentage of improvement in math that the students could achieve after playing the game, and therefore, claiming if the video game is recommendable or not for certain students.