Integrate video games into education

For a long time, the majority of educators have been argued the negative effects of video games, such as violence and sex (Seth, 2005). As a teacher in a high school in China, I have met a considerable amount of students give a poor performance in their studies because they are addicted to computer games. Some of them even commit a crime because of the violent and sex-related content in video games. Most of the time, if Chinese teachers find a student who seems is indulged in video games, one of the most common solutions is inviting his parents to school and asking them to send their child to a certain kind of schools which is specialized in curing this addiction. We believe that video games will definitely play a harmful role in students’ life. However we neglect the factors that “on average, teenagers spend as much or more time playing videogames than doing homework” (Mayo, 2009, p.80) and it is only a dream for teachers that “students spend the amount of motivation, attention, passion and critical thinking on their class that some students do playing videogames” (Jackson, 2009, p.291). Since it seems that it is hard for students quit playing video games, is it possible for our teachers to integrate video games with education? Maybe in this way, playing can become a motivation for learning. In an article written by Aguilera and Mendiz (2003), the benefits of combing video games with education are justified.

The journal article Video Games and Education (Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003) firstly points out the limitations of previous studies which only illustrates the negative effects of playing video games and then proves the benefits of using video games in teaching through three psychological perspectives: the affective aspect, the connate perspective and cognitive dimension.

To begin with, this article reviews some previous studies which indicate video games are harmful to students or even adolescents. During 1980s, researchers commonly believe that video games are “colossal time-wasters” (Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003, p.7). They tried to calculate how many hours children used in playing games. Some of them even conducted the studies which aimed to alleviate the addictions of video games. This measurement only lead to “an alarmist or apocalyptic perspective” (Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003, p.7), because there is no standard of the length of time used on study and using longer time in studying does not mean having better quality of education. When comes to 1990s, the scientific community openly showed their disbelief of the advantages of video games and pointed out that video games were a meaningless type of entertainment. At the same time, with the trend of focusing on the detrimental effects of the mass media on children, some researcher studies believed that there were a parallel relationship between playing of video games and the rising violence among children and adolescents. Nevertheless, they draw their conclusion merely based on the fact that the percentage of people who chose educational video games was relatively small compared to those who chose other genres’ games. The limitation of this study is that choosing non-educational games do not mean game players hate education and playing games from other genres does not necessarily lead to the violent behaviors. The obvious limitations of these kinds of studies show that we have a negative bias on video games and it is necessary to establish a more objective and scientific approach to investigate the effects of video games.

More scientific research studies claim the contributions of video games from different perspectives. To begin with, video games have affective consequences which mean when playing video games, students tend to have awakening feelings and relieve their stress. Secondly, from connate aspect, many studies prove that the video games concerning arcade-type, action, role-play can contribute to the development of motor co-ordination, manual skill and reflexes. Thirdly, video games have a close relationship with education. Many researchers, such as Estallo (cited in Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003) claim that some complicated games, such as strategy games, can result in the development of intellectual abilities which will help students in study. Some games, such as Sims (social simulation) and Civilization (historical simulation and strategy), can enhance students’ specific skills, including “attention, spatial concentration, problem-solving, decision-making, collaborative work, creativity and of course ICT skills” (Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003, p.8). Similarly, Okagaki and Frensch, (1994) also suggested that playing video games could develop students’ knowledge strategies and spatial ability, increase precision rates and even improve critical thinking. Moreover, Almaraz (1999) regarded video games as a motivation which could trigger students’ interest of learning. In curriculum setting, video games can be extremely useful, because it simulate real situation in every day life. This advantage is often used in medicine and business classes, because there are limited chances for students to practice the skills in real world. In these games, students can practice time and time again and if they do not do a good job, it will not cause severe consequences.

In this article, the advantages of using video games in educating students are explained and sustained by the authors. However, when educators are thrilled about the benefits video games may bring into education, many practical aspects of the implementation need further research and go through a long experimental stage. Except for encouraging competency skills such as teamwork and problem-solving acquired from game playing mentioned by Aguilera and Mendiz (2003), many teachers working in tightly structured curriculum contexts with a heavy emphasis upon content acquisition would significantly doubt the potential of incorporating games into their teaching(Ulicsak, Facer, & Sandford, 2007). The fact that well-designed edutainment games are few in numbers leads to teachers’ use of commercial off-the-shelf computer games in formal education. When using this type of video games, teachers need to overcome many cultural, technical and pedagogic challenges. Take my teaching context for example. The institutional pressure and parents’ high expectation for students’ academic scores make the stereotype of irresponsible teachers as bringing irrelevant media into classroom. In China, teacher training in the field of modern technologies is just confined to how to use simple software such as Microsoft Office. The technical support for using video games is excluded in the content of training, which is one of the prerequisites of using games for educational purpose. And between the belief of great potential of video games in education and theoretical support for integrating videogames into content-based learning, there is still a gap for educators and researchers to fill in the future. (posted by Ronda)

References

Aguilera, M. D. & Mendiz, A. (2003). Video Games and Education. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 1, 1, 1-14

Jackson, J. (2009). Game-based teaching: what educators can learn from videogames. Teaching Education, 20, 3, 291-304.

Mayo, M. (2009). Videogames: A route to large scale STEM education? Science, 323, 79-82.

Seth, S. (2005). Video game Known for Violence Lands in Rating Trouble Over Sex. The New York times, p. A.1.

Okagaki, L & Frensch, P. (1994). Effects of video game playing on measures of spatial performance: Gender effects in late adolescence. J. Appl. Develop. Psychol, 15, 1, 33-58.

Ulicsak, M., Facer, K., & Sandford, R. (2007). Issues impacting games-based learning in formal secondary education. from http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/external_publications/Teaching_with_Games_IJATL.pdf