The Impact of Digital-Based Educational Games on Children's Cognition: A Quantitative Experimental Study

This study examined the causal effect of digital educational games on the cognitive development of children aged 5–6 years in kindergarten. Although previous studies have reported positive associations between game-based learning and cognitive outcomes, rigorous experimental evidence involving typically developing children remains limited, particularly in Indonesian early childhood education. This study employed a true experimental pretest-posttest control group design involving ten participants randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 5) and a control group (n = 5). The experimental group received structured digital educational game-based learning, whereas the control group participated in conventional classroom instruction. Cognitive development was assessed before and after the intervention using indicators of attention, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, and classification. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, paired-samples and independent-samples t-tests, and Cohen’s d effect size. The results revealed that the experimental group demonstrated significantly greater cognitive improvement than the control group across all cognitive domains, with gain-score comparisons showing statistically significant differences (p < .001). Effect size analysis further indicated exceptionally large practical effects, confirming that the intervention produced substantial educational benefits beyond statistical significance. These findings suggest that pedagogically designed digital educational games constitute an effective instructional approach for enhancing multiple dimensions of early childhood cognition. The study contributes experimental evidence supporting gamification and game-based learning theories while providing practical implications for educators and educational technology developers seeking to integrate developmentally appropriate digital learning environments into early childhood education.