Experiencias de aprendizaje lúdico basadas en la gamificación y su efecto en el pensamiento lógico y la resolución de problemas en la educación infantil temprana.

Early childhood education aims to lay the foundations for the cognitive processes that will enable children to engage successfully in subsequent learning during primary education. In this context, the present study sought to determine the influence of playful learning experiences based on gamification on the development of logical thinking and problem-solving skills in children enrolled in early childhood education. The research followed a mixed-methods approach with a predominance of quantitative procedures and was conducted using a pre-experimental research design. The study involved 179 early childhood students from urban public educational institutions located in the provinces of Pichincha, Imbabura, and Cotopaxi, Ecuador. The gamification intervention consisted of a series of structured game-based activities involving problem-solving challenges designed to promote cognitive skills such as observation, classification, sequencing, comparison, and solution-seeking strategies. After the implementation of the gamified intervention, an improvement in students’ logical thinking and problem-solving abilities was observed. In addition, qualitative analysis revealed increased levels of motivation, engagement, and persistence among students while completing the proposed tasks. These findings indicate that, from an early age, gamification-based activities can represent an effective pedagogical approach for fostering active learning processes and strengthening essential cognitive skills. Overall, the results suggest that gamification and the structured design of playful learning experiences are associated with improvements in logical thinking and problem-solving skills among children in early childhood education. Future research should consider more robust experimental designs in order to further examine the impact of these strategies across different educational contexts.