Abstract

PEDRO, Ketilin Mayra  and  CHACON, Miguel Claudio Moriel. DIGITAL GAMES AND GIFTEDNESS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY. Contrapontos [online]. 2017, vol.17, n.4, pp.761-773. ISSN 1984-7114.  https://doi.org/10.14210/contrapontos.v17n4.p761-773.

Digital games are considered the preferred activity of children and young people, as they enable interaction with virtual realities and can be played through any device connected to the internet. From this perspective, the objective of this study was to verify the way students with and without giftedness interact with online games. This is a comparative research involving the participation of 18 students from an elementary school, who were divided into two groups, G1 was composed of gifted students and G2 was composed of students without this characteristic. All the participants performed an online gaming activity. The students’ actions were analyzed, based on the literature in the area and classified into three categories: Lack of Knowledge, Trial and Error, and Awareness. We found that both gifted and non-gifted students used digital games and software in an intuitive way, exploiting them by “trial and error”, unintentionally. The use of digital games in the educational context promotes greater motivation and interest in carrying out the activities. We understand that the adoption of digital games in the educational context will benefit education, since these games are in line with the preferences and characteristics of digital natives, and can have positive impacts on the learning of all students, regardless of their special characteristics.

Keywords : Special Education; Giftedness; Digital Games.

        · abstract in Portuguese | Spanish     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )