Educational projects of video game gamification: development of numerical thinking and school reasoning in vulnerable contexts

Gamification through the use of video games is not yet fully applied in the Peruvian education system, due to factors such as: economic investment, probable provocation of gambling disorders; or due to ignorance of its application. In this case, it was proposed to include video games as basic gamifiers of educational projects to develop mathematical thinking in students from vulnerable contexts. The work approach was quantitative, experimental design at an explanatory level. The sample was 79 third and fourth grade elementary students from three schools in the districts of Comas and Ventanilla in Lima, Peru (M = 7.8 years; S.D. = 1.44), these were selected from three contexts determined by Zoning in their respective districts: a) Human settlement, b) housing association and c) urbanization. The instruments Enactive, iconic and symbolic diagnostic evaluation and Precalculus test were used. The results indicated differences between the pretest and posttest measurements of the calculation and operations dimension of students belonging to the human settlement context, significant differences were also obtained in the comparison of subject indexes of the housing association and urbanization context. Regarding the mathematical reasoning dimension, the data reported differences in students in the context of human settlement and housing association; however, no differences were found in the group of students in the urbanization context. Finally, the study contributed to the understanding of the gamification of educational projects as a companion to the pedagogy or didactics of mathematics in different contexts of vulnerability.