Here‘s a notice in Business Week about a study whose findings are published in the April issue of Psychological Science. The study covered 64 boys age 6 to 9, giving one group a video game system at one point in time, the other group a system four months later. Researchers gave boys reading, writing, and math tests at the beginning, then after the first four months.
The finding: “Boys who received and started playing video games right away spent less time doing homework and other after-school activities than the boys without video game systems, the study found. They also did not do as well on follow-up reading and writing tests, although no difference between the groups was found in the math scores.”
It should be no surprise that kids who play video games at home will cut down on homework and related activities such as book reading. As one expert in the piece put it, “It’s a zero-sum thing. There’s only so much time you can give to certain activities.”
Interestingly, the distinction between lesser performance on verbal scores and no difference in math scores supports that leisure, “zero-sum” thesis. Study author Robert Weis explains:
“These children probably don’t engage in a lot of math-based after-school activities. You can imagine a little boy going home and reading a story or having his parents read to him, but you can’t really imagine a first-grade boy wanting to do math problems for fund. There’s not a whole lot of displacement there.”
Researchers speculate on other factors as well, such as the impact of video games on brain activity, but the “displacement” aspect seems the most persuasive reason to advise parents, “If you want your kids to develop strong reading and writing skills, you must limit screen exposure.”
10 Responses to Video-Game Research and Academic Achievement
chuckkle - March 28, 2010 at 3:06 am
It has been claimed by some that video games increase hand-eye coordination, rapid attention shifting, etc. If there is a loss in reading skills is there a gain somewhere else?Chuck Kleinhans
jffoster - March 28, 2010 at 7:43 am
The deal with my grandnephew is that he can do computer simulations but has to do his homework first. Chuckles comment & query reminds me of the reason a kindergarten teacher once gave me for why they make such a big deal of coloring between the lines (I HATED coloring in the first grade — never went to kindergarten, thank God.). She said it was a good measure and indicator of “motor skills” and “hand~eye coordination”. I reminded her I play several musical instruments, including one that requires two hands and two feet coordination, but still cant color between the lines.” She finally admitted that the reason coloring between the lines is so important to K and 1 teachers is that it’s something they can “measure”. And show the parents. So the “measure” was what important was, not the value of it. Assessment and “objectives” anyone?
markbauerlein - March 28, 2010 at 8:42 am
There is no question that video games enhance certain motor skills, chuck, and several game theorists make claims regarding the critical thinking and decision-making tutelage they provide. I think that it’s an open question on those matters. But most early academic achievement today is reading- and writing-based, and the games that are popular don’t do much to build vocabulary and cultivate the disposition to sit in a chair and read 30 pages of text without interruption. This is not to mention, of course, the simple “displacement” factor in which homework is abandoned.
goxewu - March 28, 2010 at 9:12 am
Maybe part (but only a part) of the problem is a mistfit of forms. Video games are themselves a kind of “test” at which a player can succeed to varying A through D-minus degrees, or fail. So why doesn’t somebody come up with a video game that tests reading, writing and math in the context of fighting robots and loud explosions? Hey, read the strafing order wrong on your helicopter’s computer, or calculate the wrong trajectory for the heat-seeking missile, and you get blown out of the sky. Much more memorable than Ms. Grundy circling the wrong answer in red.
jffoster - March 28, 2010 at 11:13 am
What Goxewu suggests in (4) is indeed what Ive done with 13 year old Grandnephew mentioned above in (2). He got interested in flight simulation with helicopters. Now while to me anything that takes off with left rudder is perverse, one wants to encourage interest where it lies. So for Xmas I got him a DVD on helicopter flight, a book to go with it, and a student version of the E6B “slide rule” type of pilots’ cumputer. So he learns to calculate time, distance, fuel consumption, windage drift, &c. And gets enticed into learning mathematics, including vectors and resultants. In some respects a continuation of homework by other means. And he’s discovering that when you learn something, there’s something else you find that you want / need to know.And he has to learn to fly by FAA rules and ATC instructions.
edubrul - March 28, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Perhaps these kids are the future. Take a look at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/03/eye-tracking-tablets-and-the-promise-of-text-20/.If reading becomes interactive as Text 2.0 plans on making it become, to what extent will it differ from a video game?
blueconcrete - March 28, 2010 at 11:42 pm
As a high school student in the mid-late 1990s, I frequently avoided doing my homework in favor of playing a massively multi-player online roleplaying game called Ultima Online. I learned more about applied economics (and other skills) from that game than what my curriculum-handcuffed instructors could provide me in the classroom. As an added bonus, I now type 90 words per minute and around 60 WPM with one hand. My GPA hovering around a C- average during those four years, as I did not follow the official program. For what it’s worth, I’m now completing my PhD in literature.In other words, perhaps, in spite of warnings every few years to the contrary, the kids are actually going to be all right. For a rejoinder to the usual arguments about how ‘video games are harming our youth!’, see Jane McGonigal’s recent TED talk “Gaming can make a better world”:http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
maa0162 - March 29, 2010 at 2:29 am
Gaming and video simulation can in fact be very useful if used properly. The Navy has been using simulation for a very long time now to teach pilots how to land on a pitching deck. Tank drivers use it as well.However, not much has been done, ever, to explore what its potentiality could be in k-12 education. Since the 60′s and Skinners “programmed instruction,” many have been against this type of learning. Some in education will argue that this type of learning is too back-loaded, to use a C&I term (i.e. it teaches exclusivly to a test). While in some cases the criticism was warranted, it has lead to a situation where we might never know what simulation’s potential could have been. Now when people talk about video games, we assume that they are talking about something that has not been strutcured to be relavant in curricular terms. We assume that they are talking about a game that kids do at home for fun.Back-loading is not always a bad thing though, just ask any successful high school football coach or band/orchestra director (or military drill instructor!). They will tell you something about it that many of us have known for quite awhile now. Their jobs depend on it.
amnirov - March 29, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Breaking news: study shows that sun sets at night.
jffoster - March 29, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Evidently that research Gospodin Anmirov refers to wasn’t done at higher latitudes.