Gender Differences in Italian Teachers’ Readiness and attitudes Towards Game Integration in the Classroom

Abstract

This research investigates Italian teachers' game-related competencies and attitudes towards game-based learning (GBL), examining how these relate to teachers' own gaming habits and whether they differ by gender. Teachers' knowledge of games is conceptualised through the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge-Games (TPACK-G) framework (Hsu et al., 2015), which distinguishes game knowledge (GK), game pedagogical knowledge (GPK), game content knowledge (GCK) and game pedagogical content knowledge (GPCK). Alongside these four competencies, we assess teachers' game experience (GE), their pedagogical intention to use games (GPI), their frequency of play across four digital and analogue activities, and their use of games in professional practice. Data were collected through a cross-sectional online survey of Italian primary and secondary teachers (N = 2,623). The analysis is descriptive and correlational: we report the distribution of TPACK-G competencies and gaming habits across the sample, the bivariate associations among competencies, gaming habits and professional game use, and gender comparisons using Mann-Whitney U and chi-square tests with accompanying effect sizes. Three findings stand out. First, the TPACK-G constructs are strongly intercorrelated and positively associated with teachers' gaming habits, game experience, pedagogical intention and classroom GBL practice, whereas school grade taught and teaching experience show weak, mostly negative associations. Second, teachers play games only occasionally, and least of all digital and experiential games; analogue board and card games are the only format where players outnumber non-players. Third, several gender differences reach significance owing to the large sample, but effect sizes are small to negligible throughout: male teachers report marginally higher game knowledge and digital-game play, whereas female teachers report a somewhat stronger intention to integrate games and slightly higher use of games in practice. We discuss the implications of these small but consistent gender differences for the design of teacher education strategies that build on teachers' existing relationship with games.