Interactive Game-Based Multimedia Design Grounded in Mayer’s Principles for Enhancing Social Behavior in Primary School Children: A Technology-Oriented Approach

Background: Fostering social behavior in primary school children is essential for their social, emotional, and cognitive development. Multimedia interventions grounded in Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning offer promising approaches to enhance these skills, yet their application in social‑emotional domains remains limited, particularly in the Iranian context.Methods: This research, carried out between 2022 and 2023, employed a quantitative quasi-experimental design using a pretest–posttest approach with a control group. A total of 60 third-grade male students in Isfahan, Iran, were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 30) and control (n = 30) groups. The intervention consisted of a 10-session interactive, game-based multimedia program developed according to Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning. The program targeted five dimensions of social behavior: prosocial behavior, communicative social behavior, overt antisocial behavior, relational antisocial behavior, and victimization. Behavioral outcomes were assessed using the Children’s Social Behavior Scale (CSBS) at pre-test and post-test.Results: The intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in prosocial behavior (p = 0.041, Hedges’ g = 0.50) and communicative social behavior (p = 0.038, Hedges’ g = 0.60) compared with the control group. Although reductions in overt antisocial behavior (p = 0.128, g = –0.25), relational antisocial behavior (p = 0.144, g = –0.30), and victimization (p = 0.097, g = –0.35) did not reach statistical significance, effect size analyses indicated small to medium decreases that may be practically meaningful.Conclusion: The interactive game‑based multimedia program effectively enhanced prosocial and communicative behaviors and produced meaningful reductions in antisocial tendencies. By extending Mayer’s cognitive theory into social‑emotional domains, this study provides both theoretical contributions and practical evidence for scalable, low‑cost interventions to promote social development in primary school settings.