Morales 1

Ivan Morales

Kieran Leeds

ENC 1102

4/14/2023

The Effects of Videogames Implemented into Education

Video games have always had more to them than just being tools for entertainment. Over

the years many researchers have tried looking at video games in different areas. These would

range from implementation in the classroom, helping students with disabilities, improving the

way certain subjects are taught, etc. Some studies go into the way AR or Augmented Reality

could be used to aid certain aspects of education. One major aspect of education that AR boosts

is the medical field. Ferguson et al. expresses this importance by explaining the usefulness in the

medical field, “As nursing is a very ‘hands on’ and often technical profession, GhostHands has

real potential for innovative solutions to creative learning environments.” (3). GhostHands is an

AR tool made to improve students learning in the medical field. The use of AR technology

which was originally made for games can be implemented to ensure that future generations of

doctors and surgeons have more hands-on experience without the risks. Due to the known

knowledge that surgeons and doctors get better with more hands-on occurrences, the usage of

augmented reality could boost improvement and make it safer for future patients.

Moreover, on AR, Emiroglu and Kurt talk about a few studies that each go into separate

educational subjects, “In the literature, there are lots of AR studies carried out in various

education fields, such as maths education, biology education, physics education, chemistry

education, medical education, and science education.” (100). Each subject is equally improved

by using augmented reality when it comes to assisting the students. When implementing AR into
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a specific subject it is important to know what would benefit the class or student more. In most

cases, the use of AR could be extra beneficial to these listed subjects due to a combination of

many factors. With the use of AR, subjects become interesting and make the students more

invested, and improve the student’s ability to understand a certain subject.

Instead of AR, Sternig et al. focus on the usage of VR to teach students the concepts of

math, “The idea was to create an educational math game to test a game-based approach for

learning and repeating these operations.” (182). While the other studies above were about how

AR helps certain fields of study in education, this one takes the usefulness of VR technology and

math learning to see the effect it has on engineering students. The last study goes into the

usefulness of Minecraft in the education systems. Yi states how useful Minecraft and its

educational version are, “While still relatively new, current MCEE science lessons have already

been created and structured” (191). Not only has Minecraft started leaning toward being used for

education. This research shows how easy it was to create lessons for science using MCEE.

More on how Videogames affect education, Bavelier et al. go into how different

researchers perceive the concept of video games and education, “six experts in the field shed

light on our current understanding of the positive and negative ways in which playing video

games can affect cognition and behavior” (763). The authors explain their viewpoints and give

examples of research that led to their viewpoints. The other article goes into how the cognitive

processes and science of the brain affect the viewpoint of video games being beneficial to

education. Mayer demonstrates this idea, “A suggested advantage for game-based learning is that

players become self-regulated learners who take responsibility for monitoring and controlling

their cognitive processing during game play” (535). The author explains one benefit of
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incorporating games into education, and they demonstrate their bias of looking into the science

of the brain to explain the benefits.

With all this laid out. Videogames have a major impact on learning effectiveness.

Whether it be by using a game built for education like MCEE or the usage of future techs such as

AR or VR in helping students improve their capabilities and creativity for years to come. The use

of VR and AR applications makes it possible to see things in action without drawbacks. This

makes it so the future generation of doctors and surgeons can be more prepared for real-world

scenarios with fewer risks than today’s doctors and surgeons went through. The risks include

accidentally injuring or killing the patient and learning from the mistake. My research goes into

the very niche category of gaming and education. While education has had its changes and fixes,

the same concept of video games and education are never meant to be mixed. This is the niche I

will then tackle through my project which is explaining how the two have been mixed before,

and arguing why I believe they deserve to be mixed in all schools. There are a couple of classes

that could benefit greatly from the aid of video game software. The Research Questions that

arose include: What makes implementing games into education effective and why? What

improvements in the classroom can be implemented when using MCEE as the medium for

lessons and graded work?

Methods

When starting this project, I researched only scholarly Journal Articles about

implementing games into Education. At the start, my search criteria were broad but also very

narrow. As I ended up looking into more journal articles my research question became different

and a little broader to tackle all the evidence I gathered. The search began with opening the UCF

library Databases. This was due to our professor making us do it through the library databases. I
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would then go and click on ERIC(EBSCOhost) as my database. This was due to me doing

another research for essays in ENC1101. ERIC proved to be very useful so I thought using it for

my research in this project would be fine.

I would type in video games and education in the first search bar. In the optional second

search bar, I would type in benefits or advantages and select AND from the dropdown menu.

Finally, I checked the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals before selecting search. This was to

find articles under my first question which was about how implementing Video Games into

education benefits students. The first search was done to find many articles that talk about video

games and education before looking for the advantages of said combination. From there the

searches led to AR and VR rather than the classic disc games of today. As I would scroll through

the entries in the database, I would look for anything that stated terms from my original research

question. These terms would be game, education, benefit, or student. When I got a group of six

sources I would sit back and look at all of them individually and together to see if they would

connect. They all had the concept of game systems in education whether it be computers in a

computer lab or devices made for VR or even the usage of AR in phones.

Once these articles were found or better known as my primary sources, I went into

looking for secondary sources. This started with me finding the main differences and identifiers

or Secondary Sources. Once I knew the difference, I would use two searches from the same

database to get my sources. These included APA PsycInfo and ERIC which were both under

EBSCOhost. The first one was used to find good books on the topic. One went into the uses of

AR in Education while the other went more into the usage of normal video games in education.

These were just the first three of my sources. Once I got these down, I went into APA PsycInfo

which had more journal articles than were of other journal articles making them a secondary
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source. Together I gathered 3 chapters from two books, 2 journal articles, and one literature

Review.

Results

The findings from my research all increased my understanding of how implementing

Videogames into Education benefits students. To begin with, Chuang Tsung-Yen et al. aimed to

determine the benefits of using video games on different cognitive styles to figure out how

beneficial they could be. They achieved this by observing the effects of different cognitive styles

aided by gaming. The participants in this study were split into three groups, one was given the

aid of a puzzle clicker adventure game, one was given paper-based training, and the last one had

no prior training. What was interesting about the way these groups were separated is the FI and

FD separation in the samples. Based on how much better or worse they did from the mean of the

scores. Chuang et al. explained the difference, “FI participants tended to think and analyze the

relations and that the FD participants were weaker in reasoning and analytical skills, with or

without hints.” (36). Above all the students who used the clicker game ended up doing better

than the other groups.

Keller Thomas et al. aims to discover the benefits of using VR in the classroom with

children who have special needs. These researchers wonder if the usage of virtual reality could

have lasting benefits on those children’s future education. Benefits are evident as stated by

Keller et al., “With a few exceptions, all learners indicated a positive learning success in the

responses to the questionnaire.” (37). The positive effects of using VR to aid these special needs

students are present. The “few exceptions” are those kids who could not benefit from the usage

of VR. While it is true that VR can help aid certain special needs kids, not every kid is the same.
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Monteiro Marta, et al. aim to find out how video games could improve students’ self-

confidence and regulation when it comes to accomplishing assignments. After getting the

samples and examining them with separate tests, the finding has shown great improvement

among the students. Monteiro et al. elaborates with the statement “Multivariate analyses revealed

that students realized a 40–50% increase in their performance on two standardized measures of

time sensitive visual decision-making search tasks at the end of the AST intervention” (381).

This shows the specific data collection used to analyze improvement along with how the students

improved.

Nkadimeng Mahlatse and Piet Ankiewicz aim to show how implementing Minecraft’s

educational edition in the classroom aids in everyday learning. Specifically, they test out the

benefits of using it to learn chemistry in junior high school. Nkadimeng and Ankiewicz explain

how the students understood atomic structure, “Minecraft Edu made it easier for these students to

understand atomic structure.” (613). This was very interesting to me due to how good of an

effect the Minecraft educational edition had. Beyond allowing students to understand the

concepts students were very motivated while using the Minecraft educational edition,

“Motivation was confirmed with the incorporation of the element game, where students were

competitive with one another” (Nkadimeng and Ankiewicz 614). Students engaged in the

learning and became competitive with each other.

Vivancos Alejandro Egea and Laura Arias Ferrer aim to find a different outlet for

information to be received and allow students to be more invested. The main finding which

grabbed my attention from Vivancos and Ferrer, “In the specific case of history and heritage

serious games, a series of basic principles should be added to the previous enumerations. These

principles make up what was called the CREAM Model” (388). This “CREAM” model applies
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to any virtual game made for informing students about history. The letters stood for Civic

Education, Relevance, Engagement, Applicability, and Multimodality (Vivancos and Ferrer

388). For “C” the game needs to develop links with the selected cultural heritage, the “R” has to

have selected key periods, figures, or events, the “E” has to engage the students while their

learning, the “A” has to make sure the content is applicable in the class, and the “M” has to

enforce the info through other means. (Vivancos and Ferrer 388).

Wu Mei-Hung aims to show the effectiveness of using AR technology and its effect on

classrooms. They do this by going over Pokémon Go to show the students’ improvements in

English Class using the Pokémon names and the English language. The way this is proven is

through Wu’s explanation, “Students can learn the familiarity with the pictures and basic

meanings of Pokémon languages through the uses of the AR” (805). This is what the students

were able to learn, and through the medium, they did the learning. Another finding is that

“through playing Pokémon Go, the learners can improve their basic knowledge of … the

principles of the single-word utterance and prefix, suffix and root, and the information of

infographic.” (807)

Discussion

When it comes to the scholarly conversation my project has gone over, it comes down to

the Implementation of Videogames in Education and the classroom. While classes and teachers

have done a great job with the tools provided to them, there are way more possibilities that hide

behind the combination of video games and education. There are three ways in which video

games could be implemented in the classroom. This is through VR, AR, or normal computer

games. Each one has its own benefits and reasons to use it over the other. This info came from

my research question which was: What makes implementing games into education effective and
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why? What improvements in the classroom can be implemented when using MCEE as the

medium for lessons and graded work? From these questions, one central claim appeared

throughout all the articles. This central claim is, implementing video games and videogame

software into the education of students has lasting benefits.

To better explain how this claim explains the findings I separated my Articles into three

areas. To begin, the first part covers how the implementation of VR software can benefit

students’ education. Vivancos and Ferrer accomplish this by explaining a model used to create

educational History and Heritage VR games. This Model is the CREAM model which is stated

by Vivancos and Ferrer, “In the specific case of history and heritage serious games, a series of

basic principles should be added to the previous enumerations. These principles make up what

was called the CREAM Model” (388). Each letter of this model applies to a specific detail found

among the successful Educational VR games covering History and Heritage. While VR and AR

are different there are certain tools in common between them, the alteration of reality. This leads

to the supporting point from Emiroglu and Kurt, “Results show that students who played the

mobile game were more engaged and gained more historical knowledge than the regular group”

(105-106). This mobile game utilized AR technology to engage the students. In the same way,

the engagement is done by AR, the VR History game has to follow the same engagement when

creating the game. When it comes to just VR technology Sternig et al. explain, that “The virtual

reality effect creates high engagement and the feeling of presence in the world keeps the player

focused on the current exercise (Involvement).” (188) When it comes to engaging the students

and immersing them in the environment, VR accomplishes this fully and explains how Educating

History is improved by the CREAM model.

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Keller et al explain the usage of a VR math game and its effects on students with special

needs. The main issue with special needs kids are that they have difficulties with certain subjects,

one common one being math and learning math. With the use of VR Keller states, “virtual reality

is seen in mathematics as a good complementary tool that can also be used without any problems

for children with special needs in regular schools” (37). This means that when using virtual

reality, the gap between normal kids and special needs kids could be closed to give everyone an

equal education. Emiroglu and Kurt explain the reasoning for special needs kids needing more

help, “Diversity among learners having different characteristics, backgrounds and socio-

economic status should also have considered for addressing the special necessities and individual

needs of the target group” (108). This aims to show that kids vary in their needs with special kids

having more needs than most kids. One way that the use of VR in a math game can benefit the

learning of special needs kids involves, “the process of repetition to tighten the mathematical

skills of the pupils is enriched with a fun and motivational component, leading to long-term

engagement. “(Sternig et al. 196).

With the two mentioned studies going over how VR can benefit the education of certain

students, the usage of AR is more focused. The one study I gathered for the AR benefits involves

combining Pokémon Go and English Language. Wu expresses this, “The rules of building

pokémon names are based on the uses of prefix, root and suffix of English language that not only

make the learners easily memorize the words and meanings of each pokémon vocabulary, but

also provide a new method to synthesize, analyze and interact with these new words.” (788).

This is the reasoning behind the study wanting to incorporate the AR-based Pokémon game to

improve the student’s English knowledge and understanding. To understand the concept of

Pokemon Go Ferguson explains AR, “AR supplements the real world environment and augments
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the user experience with computer sensory input, such as sound, video or global positioning

system (GPS) data” (2). Along with having the concept of AR, Ferguson et al. explain the

function of MAR which is a sub-division of AR, “educational use of MAR leads higher

achievement, motivation, interest, satisfaction, engagement and joy, lower cognitive load and

positive attitude towards MAR-based educational practices.” (109). This brings the concept of

using Pokémon Go into a more understanding view and relates to how it effectively benefits

students’ education.

Now that the benefits of VR and AR are explored the remaining studies go into how

everyday gaming software affects education. Nkadimeng and Ankiewicz go into how the

Minecraft educational edition was beneficial, “students from all four groups were excited and

enthusiastic about being in the computer lab” (613). This is backed by Yi, “While still relatively

new, current MCEE science lessons have already been created and structured” (191). Yi talks

about how effective it is to education due to the number of courses already present. Mayer goes

into the usefulness in science class, “science, in which learning by playing games produced

higher test scores than learning from conventional lessons” (544). This shows the effectiveness

of MCEE toward education.

Monteiro et al. show the combination of Mindfulness Concepts and Videos Games,

“video gaming activities designed to challenge visual attention, memory, and decision-making in

engaging and entertaining motivational contexts.” (382). To better explain the findings Bavelier

et al. explain visual attention, as “The documented gains in processing speed, attentional control,

memory, and cognitive and social control” (763). This helps explain the better attention gained

from games and Mayer explains the memory part, “connecting the incoming material with
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relevant existing knowledge activated from long-term memory” (534). These sources help show

how the benefits are found and explain them.

Chuang et al. explain the different cognitive styles being benefited, “Regardless of

student’s cognitive style, the puzzle adventure game group performs better than those in the

control group on the posttest” (38). The findings show no difference when looking at just the

benefits so Bavelier et al. show how the improvements occurred, “intensive use of video games

results in significant generalized improvements in cognitive function” (763). Mayer goes into the

cognitive processing included in the different cognitive styles, “When people play an educational

computer game, they can allocate their limited processing capacity among three kinds of

cognitive processing” (534). Together these show how the generalized benefits all around were

gathered from the study.

Conclusion

To conclude, the research was conducted to the best of my ability. That doesn’t mean

there is no room for improvement. For starters, my topic was way too general. A better topic

would have been to go into how VR alone or AR alone could benefit education. For any future

Research, there should be more focus on first-hand data. My info came from others. Some

primary data that could have been gathered may have included samples of students who already

have access to game-assisted education. The limitation for me was that I couldn’t conduct my

data collection and had to rely on others, an major improvement would be to include first-hand

data collection. The usage of more databases could also improve the data, I didn’t due to the

more relevant info.

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Works Cited

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