The Effect of Playing Mobile Game to Academic Performance Among Grade 12 students

INTRODUCTION

TRENDS

Playing Mobile Games is a popular activity in today’s society which attracts a large number of people.
For numerous people it has become an everyday activity and it is not uncommon that some people
spend most of the day’s hours in the worlds of gaming. This has led to countless discussions, both by
media and previous research, about whether the individual is affected by gameplay and the actual
impact of gaming. Something that often comes into focus is the outcomes from the amount of time
spent on mobile games. According to Wood, Griffiths and Parke (2015), video gamers have a tendency
to lose sense of time and space when playing which may be a cause to the high amount of gameplay
hours. However, it is important to understand that the high amount of time spent on mobile games is
not necessarily something bad as long as there is not some kind of damage to one’s life, e.g. in terms of
psychological, family, social, or school functioning (Bavelier et al., 2018; Gentile, 2019). Therefore it is of
interest to look to the possible damages that could be brought to one’s life when playing video games.

ISSUES

The previous research that has been studying how video gameplay may affect one’s performance in
school is not in agreement as the results vary. Some studies have found a negative correlation between
time students spend playing Mobile games and their performance in school (Anand, 2017; Gentile, 2015;
Burgess. S, Sterner & Burgess. M, 2012; Weaver, Kim, Metzer & Szendrey, 2013; Ip, Jacobs & Watkins,
2015) and other studies have not found any significant relation (Sharif & Sargent, 2006; Ventura, Shute
& Kim, 2012). One popular theory to explain the correlation of gameplay hours and academic
performance is the displacement hypothesis (Hastings et al. 2014; Gentile, 2016) which can be described
as time spent on playing video games among school-age children is stolen time from educational
activities (Bavelier et al., 2017). A prequestionnaire and pre-test were carried out before the participants
started using the app game for learning. A post-test and post-questionnaire were completed and
analyzed after the 2-week experiment as a result This paper reveals that mobile game-based learning is
a workable and acceptable learning method for both female and male university students from different
faculties (Yu-Lan Huang, Dian-Fu Chang, Berlin Wu, 2017). The results indicate that language teachers
could benefit from collecting mobile educational applications and implementing the teaching via
technology model into ubiquitous learning activities. The improvement between the pre-test and post-
test showed the students’ positive learning performance.
OBJECTIVE

There are conflicting findings in the research literature this demonstrate a blind spot or gap in the
current research findings. Innovations and mobile-based technologies can provide wide-range
opportunities to embed learning in authentic environments and thus can enhance students’ motivation
and learning process. Therefore, the main goal of this research is to examine the impact of mobile
games, to the Academic Performance on students, this study is currently investigated, hoping to fill the
gap that exists in the current literatures.

CONTRIBUTION

This paper is a contribution to the already existing research regarding how playing mobile game time
influences students’ academic performance and educational activity. The results of the study could also
be used as a guide for the administration in creating guidelines and programs for schools. As a way to
motivate kids, teachers can employ mobile gaming. They can incorporate gaming into the teaching and
learning process to boost student engagement. Students may find the findings of this study useful as
they choose what opportunities and interventions to provide and improve their academic performance.
The study's findings may have important information that will be beneficial to other researchers and can
serve as their future reference in their research study.