Date : 9/7/2019

Section : Caleb

Leader : Loto, Steven Jhon

Member : Lucas, Dale Anthony
Medrano, Earl James
Quintos, Leinard Jace
Santos, Gimel *
Villamor, Jhohn Carlito

Topic : TIME MANAGEMENT: USAGE OF MOBILE GAMES

Activity #4 :Background of the Study

The effects of video games on school achievement

© 2018 Gwen Dewar, PH.D., all rights reserved

What are the effects of video games on school achievement?

Are we doing kids a disservice by letting them play on a daily basis?
Or does gaming actually help sharpen a child's mental faculties, and
perform better in school?

We need more research to answer these questions definitively. In particular, we

need randomized, controlled experiments, and those are lacking. But based on the
limited information we have now, it seems that extreme claims on either side of the
spectrum are wrong.

On the one hand, playing video games probably doesn't harm school performance --
not as long as kids don't play so much that they neglect school-related activities, like
reading, or skimp on sleep. And not as long as the games they play are age-
appropriate, and don't cause emotional troubles.

On the other hand, video games aren't a magical pill for boosting IQ, or transforming
poor students into excellent ones. But it appears that kids who play games with
moderate frequency -- a few hours a week -- tend to have better academic skills
than kids who don't play video games at all. In addition, there is evidence that
certain types of games can enhance spatial skills, and possibly help children with
dyslexia learn to read.

What happens when we introduce video games into the home?

The best way to understand the effects of video games on school performance is to
conduct randomized, controlled experiments. As I've already noted, these are in
short supply. But one exception is a small experiment conducted by Robert Weis and
Brittany Cerankosky.

They selected 64 boys living in the U.S. who didn't own any video game systems.
Then they randomly assigned each boy to one of two conditions:
  boys in the "video games now" group were each given a new
system immediately
 boys in the "video games later" group didn't receive systems until the study
was completed

Four months after the study began, the researchers examined the boys’ academic
performance at school. And they found evidence of an effect.

Not only did the kids with new game systems spend less time doing homework, they
also performed worse on standardized tests of reading and writing four month's
later. Moreover, their teachers were more likely to report academic problems (Weis
and Cerankosky 2010).

That sounds worrying, but we have to keep in mind: It's just one small study, and
critics raise the point that these kids had never before owned a game console. Maybe
they slacked off at school because gaming was a novelty. If the study had tracked
them longer, maybe these kids would have eventually learned to balance school and
game play (Drummond and Sauer 2014).

In support of this idea, a larger, correlational study of more than 3,100

school children found no evidence for reduced achievement among habitual
gamers.

On the contrary, video game playing in this study was actually linked
with higher academic achievement -- even after the researchers controlled for socio-
economic status and other relevant factors (Kovess-Masfety et al 2016)
Other studies hint that it's the kind of game play that matters.

Multi-player versus single-player gaming

Consider research on the PISA, or Programme for International Student Assessment.

It's a highly-regarded scholastic achievement test taken by 15-year-olds throughout
the world. Does performance on this test correlate with video game use?

In one study, researchers examined the test results of more than 190,000 teens,
and found evidence of a small, negative effect.

But it was only for one subject area -- reading -- and only among students
who reported playing multi-player video games "almost every day."

When compared with teens who never played video games, these avid players
tended to have lower reading scores.There was no effect observed for kids who
played single-player games (Drummond and Sauer 2014).In a subsequent
study, Francesca Borgonovi analyzed a more recent set of PISA scores, and reported
a similar pattern:

Multi-player gaming, rather than single-player gaming, was linked with

lower performance in reading.
In this study, frequent use of multi-player games was associated with a "steep
reduction in achievement," particularly among struggling students, and particularly
for students taking pencil-and-paper (as opposed to computer-based) tests.

By contrast, "moderate" use of single-player games was associated with a

performance advantage (Borgonovi 2016).

So there is reason for concern, but the evidence is mixed.Video game detractors seem
eager to publicize studies that support their views. But the evidence suggests that
there isn't any simple lesson regarding the effects of video games on school
performance.

Frequent use of multi-player games may put youth at higher risk for poor reading
performance, perhaps because kids replace reading time with the excitement of
multi-player games. This interpretation is consistent with the results of a study
of American adolescents, aged 10 to 19: Kids who played video games spent 30%
less time reading (Cummings and Vandewater 2007).

There is also evidence that playing video games at night can disrupt sleep, which
could explain decrements in school performance.

In addition, studies suggest that kids who regularly play video games are at
a slightly increased risk for developing attention problems at school.

Playing violent video games may have a small -- but negative -- effect on behavior.

And some kids may use games excessively -- so much that gaming dominates their
lives and interferes with study time.

But the PISA studies suggest that moderate gaming may have little or no negative
effect on school achievement, and it might even have a positive effect.

As I note elsewhere, there is also reason to think that playing action video games
can boost visual spatial skills, and perhaps even help dyslexic children improve their
reading ability.

So there are both costs and benefits associated with video games, and these vary
depending on how and when kids play. It's also possible that the effects vary
with content of a game.

Evidence that educational video games are not linked with poor school performance

Erin Hastings led a survey of 70 school boys, aged 6 to 10 years (Hastings et al

2010). Her team asked parents to describe their sons' usage of video games, and to
report on their sons' academic performance (e.g., the boys’ grade point
averages).Subsequent analysis revealed that time spent playing was linked with low
school competence--but only for violent video games. Kids who played educational
video games (like Math Blaster or Reader Rabbit) did not suffer academically.You can
read more about educational gaming, and the effects of video games on school
achievement,

Link : https://www.parentingscience.com/effects-of-video-games.html