University students who play calculus video game score higher on exams

An educational video game initially developed by Texas A&M University visualization students significantly boosts students’ scores in introductory calculus, one of the toughest classes to pass on a university campus.The calculus video game, Variant: Limits, connects mathematics and gameplay in a 3D adventure in which students stop geomagnetic storms that threaten their planet’s survival by solving a series of increasingly challenging calculus problems. It was born in a collaboration of viz students and an interdisciplinary group of university faculty who work together in the Department of Visualization’s LIVE Lab. Innovative, effective measures to teach introductory calculus are in demand because too many students are failing. In fact, 22-38 percent of university students, depending on their preparation, failed calculus at more than 200 colleges that participated in a Mathematical Association of America study.