The effect of educational mobile games on learning performance: a meta-analysis and research synthesis

While several studies have investigated the effects of educational games in education, less attention has been paid specifically to the effects of educational mobile games in education. To address this gap, this study conducted a meta-analysis and research synthesis of 38 studies (N = 3302 participants) to investigate the effects of educational mobile games on students' learning performance. The analysis included field of education, level of education, learning setting, intervention duration, and mobile device type as moderating variables of the obtained effects. The findings revealed that educational mobile games have a large effect (g = 0.97) on students' learning performance, with puzzle games having the largest effect (g = 1.32) on students' learning performance. Additionally, the analysis found that the obtained effect can be moderated by several variables, including field and level of education, learning setting, intervention duration, and mobile device type. The study findings can help various stakeholders (e.g. educators and game designers or developers) in choosing the appropriate educational mobile games by taking into consideration several related confounding factors.