The impact of technology-based review games on the performance of millennial students

Abstract

Today's student is a member of the Millennial Generation, a social grouping that technology has surrounded since birth. As technology continues to change at a rapid pace, the gap between the generations is becoming ever more noticeable in public education. Using two classes of Sophomore English students in a suburban high school in the Midwest, I instructed the students using two different review strategies. Although both featured similar types of questions and prompts, the delivery methods were drastically different in that one utilized direct instruction and the other a PowerPoint-based Jeopardy game. After the review strategies and summative unit assessments, I determined the students' academic performance by comparing mean scores and the student's opinions using the Likert-scale results on a post-test questionnaire. These comparisons showed that the overall scores of the assessment following the interactive review strategy were higher than those with a direct instruction review method. Relating the questionnaire results to research-determined characteristics of the Millennial Generation, I evaluated the accuracy of the pre-defined attributes in comparison to my own findings. I found that students in the Millennial Generation show an appreciation for interactive classroom strategies that incorporate competition, manipulation, and a team constructions. This appreciation positively impacts the student's confidence and self-assurance when approaching a concluding summative assessment.