Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
Hypothesis non fingo
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Op-eds
  • Videos
  • Learning Styles FAQ
  • Daniel Willingham: Science and Education Blog

Do kids learn from video games?

3/30/2012

 
Picture
A new review takes on the question "Does video gaming improve academic achievement?"

To cut to the chase, the authors conclude that the evidence for benefit is slim: they conclude that there is some reason to think that video games can boost learning in history, language acquisition, and physical education (in the case of exergames) but no evidence that gaming improves math and science.

It's notable that the authors excluded simulations from the analysis--simulations might prove particularly effective for science and math. But the authors wanted to examine gaming in particular.

Lest the reader get the impression that the authors might have started this review with the intention of trashing gaming, they authors describe themselves as "both educators and gamers (not necessarily in that order)" and even manage to throw a gamer's inside joke in the article's title: "Our princess is in another castle." (If this doesn't ring a bell, an explanation is here.)

And they did try to cast a wide net to capture positive effects of gaming. They did not limit their analysis to random-control trials, but included qualitative research as well. They considered outcome measures not just of improved content knowledge (history, math, etc.) but also claims that gaming might build teams or collaborative skills, or that gaming could build motivation to do other schoolwork. Still, the most notable thing about the review is the paucity of studies: just 39 went into the review, even though educational gaming has been around for a generation.

Making generalizations about the educational value of gaming is difficult because games are never played the same way twice. There's inherent noise in the experimental treatment. That makes the need for systematicity in the experimental literature all the more important. Yet the existing studies monitor different player activities, assess different learning outcomes, and, of course, test different games with different features.

The authors draw this rather wistful conclusion: “The inconclusive nature of game-based learning research seems to only hint at the value of games as educational tools.”

I agree. Although there's limited evidence for the usefulness of gaming, it's far too early to conclude that gaming can't be of educational value. But for researchers to prove that--and more important, to identify the features of gaming that promote learning and maintain the gaming experience--will take a significant shift in the research effort, away from a piecemeal "do kids learn from this game?" to a more systematic, and yes, reductive analysis of gaming.

Young, M. F. et al. (2012). Our princess is in another castle: A review of trends in serious gaming for education. Review of Educational Research, 82, 61-89.
Picture
JoeN link
3/30/2012 01:50:15 am

The hype underpinning the promotion of computer gaming as educational has deep roots. This was a paper I gave some years ago which looked at where much of the rhetoric stems from. As all great teachers know, games have a perfectly valid, useful role to play as part of their teaching. But I could number on the fingers of a severely mutilated hand, how many great teachers I've met who actually know how to use any computer game, educationally.
journals.ufv.ca/rr/RR13/article-PDFs/2-nutt.pdf

rsa certificate sydney link
8/23/2012 12:08:17 am

The blog post is related to the video games that is a crazy loving thing of all the children and the youth too.I like the blog post to rad.Thanks a lot.

Dan Willingham link
3/30/2012 02:18:08 am

@JoeN there's def. plenty of hype. To be fair to the authors of this article, they did say that a real hope was that gaming would prove useful *out* of school . . . I think they are hoping for a bonus, rather than trundling the kids down to the computer lab for 1/2 hour of math games.

psp parts link
5/24/2012 12:06:57 am

I like your content information thank you for sharing.

@DrTimony link
3/30/2012 02:40:07 am

Students are in a different gaming world from whence we came. If you are about my age, your first gaming experience was likely text based--ZORK, Hitchhiker's Guide, etc. If you wanted assistance, you probably had a friend or two giving you advice or you dialed up to the local BBS to see if there were any hints. There was even a setting for "maximum verbosity." Games developed and we developed alongside them continually wowed by improved graphics--hey this one has pictures!--and then animation. Clearly, games are beyond that now. The context of gaming, social relationships inclusive, are completely different as well. Gone are the glow of green and amber screens.

If we are going to examine gaming, it is important that we have a clear view of how generations view them and then set that aside. This is not your father's Oldsmobile and these are not your father's games. All jokes aside, the acknowledgement of a kidnapped princess may be just the thing that informs us that this research may be in the wrong castle completely.

In our past lives, we gamed in that manner because that was the thing to do. Retrospectively, we may credit that experience with academic benefit but what other factors were in play? I remember staying up late to solve text based game puzzles, enter code from game magazines, and create games to challenge my friends. We were creating the games that we played. We were invested in their success and in their challenge. Very little of it had to do with the game itself. Or did it?

Cedar Riener link
3/30/2012 02:51:44 am

Please correct me if I am wrong here, but I am honestly not that interested in studies that seek to tell if <games,iPads, clickers, smartboards, etc> work (however we defined "work").
It makes me feel that we are always comparing apples to oranges, and that educational research is almost always applied research. If that is the case, the questions I want answered are not "Do iPads promote learning?" but, "What are the design principles that should guide our use of iPads in education?"
For video games, both my 8 year old sons know way more facts about states, countries, and Presidents than they have any business knowing, mostly because of games.
I guess maybe it would be interesting if we found that playing a lot of Mario Kart, or Skyrim, or other straight fun game, increased your grades in Organic Chemistry since you could do better mental rotation. But it just seems to me that most of this research pretends to ask "Does this particular technology help learning?" and instead are asking "Does this particular instance of this particular technology help learning?" No one would dream of doing a "does a telephone help learning?" or "Does the internet help learning?" study, I suspect in the future we will think the same of many studies of video games and iPads.

Dan Willingham link
3/30/2012 03:02:25 am

Cedar, I agree with you that "principles" are what need to be studied--I think I said as much in this posting--but you can see why the questions have been posed as they have. People like the idea that games will teach kids something, and so some companies have responded with games that they claim will teach kids something. So it's no surprise that the research question is "does it teach kids something?"

Jon Becker link
3/30/2012 03:15:09 am

Cedar, you use the word "learning" often, but I think it's important to note that this was a study of "student achievement" as measured by formal (probably standardized) assessments. Learning and achievement are not necessarily the same thing, IMHO. So, I'm much less interested the achievement effects of games than I am of the benefits for learning. For example, I want to know
"Do kids who play 'educational games' become more interested in, say, STEM areas?" Or, to Lali's comment below, "Do kids who play educational games become more willing to try, tinker, struggle, persist, etc. in the face of a learning challenge?"

Also, I note that this was a literature review (not a meta-analysis, which is important...) of studies of "...video games in the classroom relating the use of video games to classroom achievement." Again, to Lali's point below, video games are often square pegs in the round holes of curricula. I want to know how video games played in an extracurricular fashion (like your kids, and mine) impact learning.

Dan Willingham link
3/30/2012 03:21:20 am

Jon--the researchers were more open-minded than that. Outcome measures were seldom standardized tests. . . when they measure content knowledge, it's often a test designed by researchers . . .more important, they were interested in other outcomes, e.g., whether playing a game in which kids used genetic principles increased their engagement in a later school unit on genetics.

Lali link
3/30/2012 04:12:51 am

Dan, I agree that achievement and learning are not necessarily the same and not necessarily measurable by the same tool. Frustratingly, as a teacher (and as a parent of gamers, for that matter), it is the achievement in which the schools have a vested interest. Unless immersive, exploratory video games can produce measurable "gains" on standarized tests, I can't imagine there will be very many R&D dollars spent on developing, refining, and implementing education games for children.

Lali link
3/30/2012 02:54:09 am

It is important to be mindful that video games teach in a completely different way than traditional schooling, and so may be difficult to measure by traditional methods. Also, just because a lesson is in a video game format does not make it equivalent to popular video games in terms of the experience it provides. Skyrim, WOW, FPS games, Mario Bros. franchise, etc. are immersive, have a steep initial skill building curve, and encourage trial and error without penalty. Until "educational" games are presented in the same way, reliable data will be difficult to collect.

Dan Willingham link
3/30/2012 03:11:24 am

Lali . . at least some of the studies are looking at potential educative benefits of games that were not especially designed to be educational. . .most researchers interested in the benefits of gaming do seem to understand the difference between a real gaming experience and a standard computer-driven lesson with a few bells and whistles--or at least that's my impression from the way they write about these matters. . .

Rafikh
4/2/2012 11:27:23 pm

I agree with @Lali that games teach in different way than traditional, and it needs to be measured in different way. Gaming is different media and it has some advantages over traditional ways of teaching-learning. Biggest advantage is the dynamic environment gaming provides, which can be used to present many difficult concepts.

psp parts link
5/15/2012 06:35:23 pm

Sure video boost your learning history, Physical education and etc....

kids party sydney link
5/29/2012 12:05:05 am

kids love video game and they want to collect it

Gamification link
7/25/2012 02:28:41 am

This is a great inspiring .I am pretty much pleased with your good work. You put really very helpful information. Looking to reading your next post.


Comments are closed.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed


    Purpose

    The goal of this blog is to provide pointers to scientific findings that are applicable to education that I think ought to receive more attention.

    Archives

    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Skills
    Academic Achievement
    Academic Achievement
    Achievement Gap
    Adhd
    Aera
    Animal Subjects
    Attention
    Book Review
    Charter Schools
    Child Development
    Classroom Time
    College
    Consciousness
    Curriculum
    Data Trustworthiness
    Education Schools
    Emotion
    Equality
    Exercise
    Expertise
    Forfun
    Gaming
    Gender
    Grades
    Higher Ed
    Homework
    Instructional Materials
    Intelligence
    International Comparisons
    Interventions
    Low Achievement
    Math
    Memory
    Meta Analysis
    Meta-analysis
    Metacognition
    Morality
    Motor Skill
    Multitasking
    Music
    Neuroscience
    Obituaries
    Parents
    Perception
    Phonological Awareness
    Plagiarism
    Politics
    Poverty
    Preschool
    Principals
    Prior Knowledge
    Problem-solving
    Reading
    Research
    Science
    Self-concept
    Self Control
    Self-control
    Sleep
    Socioeconomic Status
    Spatial Skills
    Standardized Tests
    Stereotypes
    Stress
    Teacher Evaluation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Value-added
    Vocabulary
    Working Memory