Implementation Conditions of Board Games as an Educational Technology in the Classroom

Abstract

Board game-based learning (bGBL) has demonstrated potential to promote both curricular learning and key competencies such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Existing research often examines these outcomes separately and offers limited guidance on the sustainable implementation of analogue board games as a feasible alternative to other educational media in everyday classroom practice. This action-research project, Bildungsmedium Gesellschaftsspiel at Laborschule Bielefeld and Bielefeld University, addresses this gap by investigating how board games can be implemented as an additional learning method across school forms, age groups, and subjects. The project focuses on three interrelated questions: how enabling conditions for bGBL can be identified and analysed; whether board games can support teaching that accommodates diverse learner needs and promotes participation across school types and age groups while remaining aligned with curricular objectives; and whether subject-specific board games may help to alleviate stress during cover lessons for teachers and pupils. This research combines long-term classroom observations, a workshop informed by Clarke’s situational analysis approach, questionnaires, interviews, group discussions, and qualitative content analysis. Participants include teachers and pupils from several schools. Preliminary findings indicate that bGBL represents a highly complex learning situation shaped by teacher experience, group dynamics, learners’ board game experience, curricular aims, accessibility, classroom organisation, and the quality of instructional guidance. Classes unfamiliar with playing board games require explicit support in learning game procedures, participation rules, and collaborative practices. Based on evidence of isolated learning effects, this project seeks to support broader implementation across educational contexts. The long-term aim is to develop an empirically and theoretically grounded teaching framework, including practical guidance on implementation for teacher education, inclusive practice, school organisation, and curricular use of board games.