Enhancing Fundamental Math Skills of STEM Students through math games instruction

We intend to prepare a presentation only, no full paper. This study addresses mathematics intervention for STEM students at a large R1 university (XXX) and a community college (YYY) in the Southwest. In the 2020-2021 academic year, only 21% of high school students in the primary Southwest School District, a major source of XXX and YYY undergraduates, demonstrated math proficiency. This challenge is more pronounced for Latinx students in Title I schools. Despite engineering degrees requiring advanced math courses, most incoming freshmen are placed in basic math, resulting in a significant delay before reaching calculus. Since fall 2021, a co-requisite model has been implemented at YYY and XXX, placing STEM students not yet math-ready in co-requisite precalculus. Literature suggests active learning, technology, and peer collaboration as effective remediation tools. To that end, Math Masters (M&M) games were developed in collaboration with the XXX Center of Game Innovation, to supplement the co-requisite model. Following an iterative design process, the math games target basic arithmetic operations, functions, logarithmic and exponential modeling, and system of equations. The presented game on functions breaks down concepts for targeted intervention while employing place-based pedagogy to enhance engagement and math achievement. The ongoing research incorporates formative evaluation to refine the games and integrates quantitative and qualitative measures to assess M&M's impact on math knowledge, motivation, academic achievement, and engineering major persistence. This multifaceted approach aims to enhance the effectiveness of math remediation and foster success among STEM students at XXX and YYY. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Grant # xxxxxxx.