RT Journal Article
T1 Do you want to learn physics? Please play angry birds (but with epistemic goals)
A1 Pozo Municio, Juan Ignacio
A1 De Aldama Sánchez, Carlos
AB For some years now, the scientific community has been studying how videogames foster acquisition of mental representations of the world around us. Research to date suggests that the efficiency of videogames as learning tools largely depends on the instructional design in which they are included. This article provides empirical evidence related to the use of the videogame Angry Birds and how it can modify students’ conceptions regarding object motion. We selected a sample of I IO l6- to I7-year-old students in postcompulsory secondary school. Both quantitative and qualitative data are provided. Our results show that (a) merely playing Angry Birds does not produce significant learning, (b) learning occurs when Angry Birds is guided by epistemic goals. Students who used the videogame in this way were able to recognize more variables, provide better explanations, and understand more fully the relationship between angle and distance, (c) naifbelief regarding the effect of mass on falling objects (“mass-speed belief”) remained unchanged after using Angry Birds guided either pragmatic or epistemic goals, and (d) there was no significant difference between students who worked collaboratively in pairs and those who worked individually. In the light of these results, we discuss potential implications for the future.
PB Southern New Hampshire University, USA
SN 0735-6331
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94899
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94899
LA eng
NO de Aldama C., Pozo J-I. (2020). Do You Want to Learn Physics? Please Play Angry Birds (But With Epistemic Goals). Journal of Educational Computing Research, 58(1), 3-28. DOI: 10.1177/0735633118823160
NO FundingThe authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Spanish Ministry of Innovation, Science and Universities has supported this research through the Project EDU2017-82243-C2-1-R.
NO Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España) 
DS Docta Complutense
RD 24 mar 2026