Use of the EdAs application for learning grammatical syntax among seventh-grade General Basic Education students: a pre-experimental study

Abstract

The study assessed changes in the acquisition of grammatical syntax among Year 7 pupils in General Basic Education following a teaching intervention facilitated by the EdAs app. The study employed a mixed-methods approach with a single-group pre-experimental design, following a pre-test–intervention–post-test sequence. The intervention took place over five sessions, focusing on the identification of subjects, predicates, nuclei, functions and complements, and areas of lexical knowledge, using EdAs as a visual-interactive tool. Data collection involved a learning and performance test, an observation scale and a Likert-type questionnaire. Quantitative analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The results showed that all 19 students scored 10 out of 10 in the pre-test, indicating a high initial level. In the post-test, we obtained an average score of 9.42 and a statistically significant difference compared with the pre-test (p=0.007), mainly due to the greater complexity of the sentences assessed. The most significant difficulties lay in identifying adverbial complements, distinguishing between different types of complements, and recognising conjunctions and the functions of subordinate clauses. Despite this, the perception of EdAs was positive, with a usefulness and acceptance score of 4.72 and an ease-of-use score of 4.55. It can be concluded that, under the conditions assessed, EdAs did not show any clear improvements in performance, although it demonstrated potential as a teaching resource to encourage participation, attention and collaboration.