A Meta-Analysis of Studies on the Effectiveness of Using Games Strategies in English Language Learning and Teaching

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the general trends, description and focus of research about the effectiveness of using games strategy in English language teaching and learning. That is, it investigated the strategies used, instrument, year of publication, publication type, participant, design of the study, skills and areas analyzed in the study, and length of text in studies about the effectiveness of games method. The study used a meta-analysis research design in data collection and analysis. The sample of the study consisted of 70 journal articles, conference proceedings, and graduate theses and dissertations published between 2000-2018. The instrument of the study was a meta-analysis checklist. The descriptive statistics, including frequencies and percentages were used to find differences between the different features. The findings revealed that strategies used in this study and, the feature games (regular) method had the highest frequency. Moreover, the test instrument had the highest frequency in the sample studies analyzed. However, the year 2016 obtained the highest frequency for the year of the study. The type of publication got the next highest frequency in favour of conference proceedings. This was followed by the participant type and level features (EFL learners, school, and 16 participants and more) in the study sample. The experimental design of studies about games strategies received a high frequency. There was also the frequency for skills and areas in studies about games strategies in favour of reading.  The feature games are more effective than other methods and the text length of 11 to 20 pages (2,645-4,729 words) category had the highest frequency. Finally, several related recommendations were introduced to the researchers, curricula designers, supervisors, and English teachers.