We’re excited to announce the publication of a new article by TLC alumnus Dr. Gulsah Kacmaz and Dr. Adam Dubé in Computers & Education, titled “Measuring teacher scaffolding in game-based learning: Emotional and responsibility scaffolds lead while resources and previous game experience shape practices.”
As educational games continue to gain traction in classrooms, one critical piece of the puzzle has remained understudied: How do teachers actually support learning during gameplay? This study offers new insight—and a new tool—for understanding the real work teachers do to help students learn through games.
A First-of-Its-Kind Tool for Measuring Scaffolding in Game-Based Learning
The centerpiece of the study is the Teacher Scaffolding Questionnaire for Game-Based Learning (TSQ-GBL)—a new, theory-driven, empirically validated instrument designed to measure how often and in what ways teachers scaffold student learning during educational gameplay.
Through PLS-SEM analysis of responses from 180 K–12 teachers, the authors identified three core types of scaffolding:
- Cognitive scaffolds: helping students process game content and make conceptual connections
- Responsibility scaffolds: keeping students focused and on task
- Emotional scaffolds: supporting motivation and managing frustration
Key Findings: What Teachers Are (and Aren’t) Doing
The study revealed a telling pattern:
- Teachers most often provided emotional and responsibility scaffolds—cheering students on, reminding them of goals, and offering encouragement.
- However, cognitive scaffolds—the ones that help students deeply understand content—were used significantly less frequently.
This highlights a missed opportunity in many classrooms: while games are fun and engaging, their learning potential may be underused without more structured academic support.
Experience and Resources Matter
The study also found that teachers who had prior experience using games in their teaching were more likely to use all forms of scaffolding. Importantly, access to school resources—like technology and training—indirectly supported stronger scaffolding by increasing teachers’ comfort with game-based pedagogy.
In other words: more resources → more game use → more learning support.
Implications for Schools and Policymakers
These findings point to actionable next steps:
- Professional development should explicitly train teachers in using cognitive scaffolds during gameplay.
- Policymakers and administrators should invest in the infrastructure and training needed to support game-based learning—not just the games themselves.
This study contributes a valuable new tool to the educational research community and opens the door to future work on teacher roles in technology-rich learning environments.