Measuring cognitive load in practicing arithmetic using educational video games on a shared display

•Tabletops and Interpersonal Computers share workspaces characteristics.•The position on the screen of displayed information affects the acquired knowledge.•The number of objects and neighbor workspaces affect the learning process.

The benefits of introducing educational video games in the classroom are many. Due to the widely available number and sizes of screens, and the learning outcomes shown by the Interpersonal Computer make this an emerging technology that should be considered for the classroom, technology that shares display characteristics with tabletops. An important factor to consider in this sort of technology is the position and amount of information displayed. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of the position on the screen of displayed information and the amount of information received by each of the students who share the workspace with respect to the acquired knowledge. We learned that students that worked with more objects and had more neighbors improved significantly less in their learning, a result that can be explained through the Cognitive Load Theory.