Computers and Video Games in Education
By: Nikki Corey, Kelly Schnieders, Amanda Peter, Jessica Peter
INTRODUCTION
The topic we chose to research was Computers and
Educational Video Games in the classroom. Throughout
our research we found that teachers are using video
games more frequently in the classroom. Research
shows that video and computer games seemed to be
beneficial to learning. Educational games and computers
are beneficial to learning because they involve auditoraly,
visual, kinesthetic, and tactile learning. They also give
clear learning goals , instant feedback, provide broad
experience, and allow students to practice different
opportunities than they normally would have. Some
research shows that video/computer games have
negative effects on students, like anti-social tendencies,
not teacher directed, and poor social skills, but the
positive effects outweigh the negative effects. We
wanted to find out if college students now thought games
were beneficial to them when they were in school.
METHOD
Our survey was created with Survey Monkey and sent
out through email to random college students. The
college students that we surveyed were from Winona
State and around the ages of twenty to twenty three. The
survey was sent out to a majority of females but males
were also included. We got a total of twenty three results
back from the survey. We used different types of
questions in our survey to get a better understanding of
the topic and our participants. We used open ended
questions and closed questions. The questions we used
for our survey were:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Are you a college student?
-Yes
-No
What is your gender?
-Male
-Female
How often did you play video/computer games in
grades K-12?
-Often
-Sometimes
-Never
If so, what kinds of games do you remember
playing?
-Open Ended
If you did not play video games, do you wish you
would have?
-Yes
-No
6.
What kind of positive effects do you think result
from playing video/computer games?
-Gives student feedback
-Multiple difficulty levels depending on the students
skill
-Random elements of surprise
-Emotionally appealing to fantasy
-Games can be open-ended to creativity
-Players may not realize they are leaning
something because it is fun
-Games relate to verbal information to both visual
images and action
-Allow a sense of control and flexibility
-Use imagination
RESULTS
We used three graphs to help show our
results from the survey questions. We
picked three questions that would help
explain our topic better and show how
meaningful people think video games
and computers are. Are results are
below.
What subjects do you think
educational video/computer games
work best in? Check all that apply.
120.00%
100.00%
80.00%
95.50%
60.00%
40.00%
8.
9.
What grades do you think video/computer games
benefit the most?
-K-4
-5-8
-9-12
Do you think video/computer games are beneficial to
kids in this generation?
-Yes
-No
What kind of negative effects do you think could
result from playing video/computer games?
-Takes away from social interactions
-Not teacher directed
-Can’t ask for direct help
-Takes away from the child’s other studies
-May be addictive
-Child may become less confident and less sociable
-May become too use to working with a computer
and may not work well with actual person
-I don’t see a problem
-Other:
10. What subjects do you think educational
video/computer games work best in?
-Math
-English
-Social Studies
-Science
-Arts (Choir, Band, etc.)
50.00%
45.50%
20.00%
7.
CONCLUSION
From our results we have concluded that educational
video/computes games are beneficial in the classroom.
Not only do they allow students to learn new skills they
also allow for instant feedback. Most of the time students
do not even realize they are learning because they are
having fun. There is some research that shows there are
some negative effects like poor social skills, developing
anti-social tendencies, and it is not teacher directed, still
the positive outcomes outweigh the negative effects. Now
that we know that video/computer games are beneficial
we want to know exactly how students are benefiting
from them, what kind of progress are they making, and
how long it takes for progress to be effective. Even
though our graphs show that most people think that math
is the most beneficial subject for video games,
participants also believed they benefited all subjects.
27.30% 31.80%
22.70%
13.60%
Series1
0.00%
In this graph we found that 95.5% of the people we
surveyed thought that math was the best subject for
educational games.
Do you think video/computer games are
beneficial to kids in this generation?
No
9%
Yes
91%
In this graph we found that 91% of the people we
surveyed thought that video and computer games in
education were beneficial in this generation.
REFERENCES
What kind of positive effects do you think
result from playing video/computer
games? Check all that apply.
90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
Mitchell, A. & Savial-Smith, C. (2004). The Use
of Computer and Video Games for Learning.
Retrieved February 12, 2009, from
www.masternewmedia.org
77.30% 77.30%
63.60%
54.50%
40.90%
45.50%
54.50%
40.90%
22.70%
Series1
In this graph we found that the majority of the people
thought that the most beneficial factors were that the
games were open ended and most kids didn’t realize the
games were educational.
Video Games in Education. (2005). Retrieved
February 12, 2009, from Federation of
American Scientists Website:
www.fsa.org
Gee, James. (2005). What Video Games Can
Teach Us About Making Students Want to
Learn. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from
www.edletter.org