“Your Turn!”: Playing Cooperative Modern Board Games to Promote Perspective Taking and Cooperative Attitudes

Though social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions successfully foster enhanced social, emotional, and academic outcomes, the research on engaging methods for teaching specific skills has been limited. This study investigates the potential for modern board games to foster SEL competencies through Cooperative Learning Theory. Because cooperative modern board games combine motivating gameplay and designs that align with elements from Cooperative Learning Theory, they may enhance cooperative attitudes and perspective taking skills. In this pre-test/post-test quasi-experiment, middle school students played either a cooperative or competitive board game. Students who played and highly enjoyed the cooperative game showed significantly greater increases in perspective taking skills after gameplay (F=11.42, p=.001), suggesting that playing enjoyable cooperative modern board games may be associated with increased perspective taking skills. Our findings suggest the need for further investigation into board games as a low-cost platform for students to practice SEL skills outside of the formal classroom environment.