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Video Games | Research

Drill Down: Gaming in Education

  • 01/11/11

Incorporating video or online games into instructional activities continues to gain acceptance, as game makers produce increasingly sophisticated products--such as virtual world environments (see "Next Stop, OpenSim!")--that pose many benefits for teaching and learning.

Below, secondary school students identify many positive effects of bringing gaming into the classroom.

Highlights:

  • About six out of 10 middle school students think the use of games would help them understand difficult concepts.
  • Greater engagement in subject matter is gaming's most widely seen benefit among high school students.
  • At both the middle school and high school levels, connecting the real world to the subject matter received the fewest responses.

Data courtesy of Speak Up 2009. Speak Up is an annual national research project that surveys K-12 students, teachers, parents, and administrators. Speak Up is produced by Project Tomorrow, a national nonprofit organization providing leadership, research, and programming to support science, math, and technology education in America's schools. To participate in Speak Up 2010, visit tomorrow.org/speakup/index.html.

Comments

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 Lydia Hinojosa

The subject of a Gamer-like experience to convey educational concepts if wonderful. I thought it was interesting that there was not much of a difference in the responses between the two groups. The few differences that are there are logical. .. A) By high school, most students know how to work in a team. .. B) Middle school students my still be intimidated by some subjects and have the impression that it is difficult. .. It's nice when we can pretty much figure out why the numbers are different.

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 Brock Dubbels

One of the questions they might have asked was whether instructional activities would be better if they were designed like a game: *The activity is the assessment *Real-time, instantaneous feedback *Do-overs *Multiple pathways for problem solving (in good games) *Clear goals and outcomes with criteria *Just in time instruction with applied practice *Well-defined learning/performance roles *Structured collaborative interaction with spontaneous shared experience. *Play is emphasized -- thus failure is part of success. I designed my classrooms this way. I have placed some of my papers and descriptions here: www.vgAlt.com

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