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This study investigated the effects of vocabulary games on primary school students‟
English vocabulary learning particularly examining their effects on vocabulary learning
motivation, peer-interaction, and achievement. Guided by the Socio-cultural Theory and the
Social Constructivist Model, an experiment was conducted to see the differences in students‟
vocabulary learning with and without games between randomly selected experimental (N=49)
and control (N=48) groups. The experimental group learned vocabulary lessons through four
games; namely: Memory Game, Outburst, Chain Game, and At the Zoo whereas the control
group followed the conventional methods. A pretest posttest comparison group quasi-
experimental design and a convergent parallel design type of mixed methods design were
employed. The participants of the study were grade six students at Atse Sertse Dingil Primary
School, Bahir Dar. For data collection purposes, tests, questionnaires, interviews, and
observations were used. While quantitative data were computed using One-way MANOVA after
several assumptions were checked qualitative data were analyzed descriptively and thematically.
The findings of the study showed that after the intervention the experimental group significantly
excelled the control group in overall vocabulary learning (Wilks‟ λ = 0.840, p<0.05).
Nevertheless, with respect to the univariate tests, this comparison was found to be significant on
vocabulary learning motivation (p<0.05) and achievement (p<0.05) while peer-interaction
remained non-significant (p<0.05). The qualitative evidence associated with these variations was
also explained. Based on the findings, it was concluded that vocabulary games are worth-
considering for teaching English vocabulary to students in the primary school, especially to
improve learners‟ vocabulary learning motivation and achievement. |
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