A review of outcomes and impacts of
playing computer games
Dr Elizabeth Boyle
University of the West of Scotland, High Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE
Games for entertainment, learning
and behaviour change
Over the last 40 years computer games have
had a transformational impact on how we
spend our leisure time and have increasingly
replaced more traditional leisure activities
More recently there has been much interest in
and speculation about whether games could
be used for learning and changing attitudes
Literature reviews of games at
UWS
At UWS we have been involved in carrying out a
number of literature reviews on aspects of GBL
In this presentation I will describe a literature
review which aimed to examine evidence very
broadly about the outcomes and impacts of
playing computer games
Focus was on positive impacts
Will highlight some interesting papers
Objectives of literature review
determine what research has been done on
outcomes and impacts of playing computer
games
interested in entertainment games, GBL and
serious games
try to find a way of organising the diverse
research in this area
describe how the different projects have
Search terms
("computer games" OR "video games" OR
"serious games" OR "simulation games" OR
"games-based learning" OR "MMOG" OR
"MMORPG" OR "MUD" OR "online games")
AND (evaluation OR impacts OR outcomes
OR effects OR learning OR education OR
skills OR behaviour OR attitude OR
Databases searched
databases relevant to education, information technology and social science. ACM,
ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, BioMed Central,
Cambridge Journals Online, ChildData,
Oxford University Press (journals), ScienceDirect,
EBSCO (consisting of Psychology and Behavioural Science, PsycINFO, SocINDEX, Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts,
CINAHL), ERIC,
IngentaConnect,
Selection of papers for inclusion in
the review
Abstract:
papers had to include an abstract.
Empirical focus:
the paper had to report
empirical evidence relating to the impacts and
outcomes of playing games.
Date:
papers from 2004 onwards were selected
for inclusion in the current review: building on
previous literature reviews
Age:
use of games by adolescents over the age of
Categorising Games
Games can be categorised in a number of ways:
Digital /non digital - Can non-digital games
provide useful guidance about design of digital
games?
The main aims/intentions of the game –
entertainment, games for learning, attitude or
behaviour change
Game genre (different kinds of game)
Platform/ delivery
Game genre (Hertz, 1997)
action games (reaction based games including
shooting and platforms)
adventure games (solving logical puzzles to
progress though a virtual world)
fighting games
puzzle games (such as Tetris)
role-playing games
simulations
Platform/delivery
computer games
video games
console games
mobile games
online games
MMOGs
ARGs
Categorising the impacts and
outcomes of games
Positive or negative effects
Intended or unintended effects
General or specific effects
Positive or negative effects
Negative effects:
promote aggressive
behaviour (Provenzo, 1991) and gender
stereotyping (Bryce & Rutter, 2002); addictive
(Griffiths & Hunt, 1998)
Positive effects:
highly engaging; s
upport
Intended or unintended effects
Many of the outcomes of playing games are
unintended, i. e. they were not intentionally designed
into the game to achieve particular goals.
•
For example, violent games were not designed
purposefully to make people more aggressive but
they do seem to have this unintended consequence
(Gentile and Gentile, 2007)
•
Entertainment games were not intentionally designed
to improve visual perceptual skills but appear to do so
•
(Green and Bavelier, 2006).
Learning games are intentionally designed to
General or specific effects
Some papers examined the generic effects
of playing games. For example several
papers considered whether playing violent
games generally makes players aggressive
Other papers examine the impact of playing
specific games, e. g. emotional and
physiological reactions to specific violent
events in playing a game; does a game
Frameworks for categorising
outcomes of games
Garris, Ahlers and Driskell (2002)
O’Neill, Wainess and Baker (2005)
Garris, Ahlers and Driskell (2002):
learning outcomes
skills based learning outcomes
•
(technical and motor skills)
cognitive outcomes
•
declarative (knowledge of facts and data)
•
procedural (knowledge about how to perform a
task)
strategic (the ability to apply rules and
strategies)
O’Neill, Wainess and Baker (2005)
CRESST model identified five “families of
cognitive demands”:
content specific
•
content understanding
•
problem solving
content independent
•
collaboration / teamwork
•
communication
Wouters et al (2009)
Identified four different kinds of outcome
that games might have –
cognitive outcomes - knowledge and
cognitive skills
motor skills
affective outcomes
Our categorisation of outcomes
knowledge acquisition/content understanding
perceptual and cognitive skills
affective, motivational and physiological
outcomes
behaviour change
motor skills
Diverse range of papers found
Papers focusing on entertainment games (64)
Questionnaire studies/ development of models of time spent playing
games/ game playing patterns/reasons for playing entertainment games
Validation studies of measures of engagement (flow, immersion)
Experimental studies of immersion in games, physiological responses Experimental studies examining perceptual and cognitive benefits of
playing games
Studies evaluating use of entertainment games for learning
Papers focusing on games for learning (52)
Evaluations of the effectiveness of specific GBL in supporting learning Studies examining pedagogical variables which influence effectiveness of
games for learning
Papers focusing on games for behaviour change (8)
evaluations of the effectiveness of specific games in supporting behaviour
Affective and motivational
outcomes
Most of the papers categorised under affective
and motivational outcomes looked at aspects
of motivation and engagement in playing
games
Digital games are clearly highly engaging, but
engagement is a somewhat elusive and
underspecified construct
Engagement/enjoyment is an outcome of
Indicators of engagement in games
numbers of people who play games
the amount of money spent on games
models of amount of time spent playing
games/patterns of playing games (TAM model;
addiction)
models of reasons for playing games (U&G
theory)
the games that people play
subjective enjoyment of games - questionnaire
measures
Models of time spent playing
games
Reasons for playing games: U&G theory identified competition,
challenge, social interaction, diversion, fantasy and arousal (Lucas and Sherry, 2004); applying U&G to sports games, Kim and Ross (2006) identified knowledge application, fantasy and identification with sport
TAM theory: social variables (social norms and critical mass)
were more important than traditional TAM variables (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) in predicting time spent playing entertainment games (Hsu and Lu, 2004)
Self-regulatory mechanisms (relieving boredom, reducing
loneliness, passing the time, providing an escape) are important in controlling amount of time spent playing games; the
Studies of flow, immersion and
presence
Immediate feelings of enjoyment and
engagement experienced while playing
games
Flow relates to the activity
Presence relates to the technology
EGameflow: Fu, Su and Yu (2005)
Sweetser & Wyeth’s model of GameFlow
provided an integrated account of enjoyment of
entertainment games.
Included eight dimensions: challenge, player
skills, concentration, control, goal clarity,
feedback, immersion and social interaction.
Fu, Su and Yu (2005) added a knowledge
Immersion (Jennett et al
,
2008)
term used to describe the extreme involvement and
enjoyable feelings experienced while playing computer
games.
but lack of clarity concerning precisely what immersion
means
series of experimental studies designed to develop
better questionnaire measures of immersion (subjective
measures) as well as exploring the possibility of
Immersion
Questionnaire
(Jennett et
al
,
2008)
A validation study identified 5 factors underlying the immersion experience questionnaire. These were 3 person related factors cognitive involvement: “How much effort did you put into
playing the game?”
real world dissociation: “To what extent was your sense of being in the game environment stronger than your sense of being in the real world?
emotional involvement: “To what extent did you feel emotionally attached to the game?”
and 2 game related factors
challenge: “To what extent did you find the game challenging?” control: “To what extent did you feel as though you were
Immersion (Jennett et al
,
2008)
Predicted that participation in an immersive task would reduce the
ability of players to subsequently “re-engage” with the real world and this could be measured by their performance on the subsequent
task.
Time taken to complete the subsequent (Tangram) task was longer
following the immersive game (Half-life) than following the non-immersive task (“square clicking”).
Interesting point: participants rated “square clicking” as quite
immersive!
Participants’ eye movements significantly increased over time in a
non-immersive condition but significantly decreased over time in an immersive condition. In an immersive game eye movements will decrease as players’ attention becomes more focused on visual components relevant to the game.
Presence (Weibel, Wissmath,
Habegger, Steiner and Groner,
2008)
Presence refers to a strong “feeling of being there", a feeling of
actually being present in the virtual scenario that is being depicted in the game.
Weibel et al found that the three constructs, presence, flow
(smooth and automatic running and adsorption) and enjoyment, were all strongly positively correlated while playing adventure game, Neverwinternights. Regression analysis confirmed that flow mediated the relationship between presence and enjoyment, i. e. presence leads to flow and that leads to enjoyment.
Participants who played against a human-controlled opponent
reported stronger experiences of presence, flow and enjoyment than participants who played against computer-controlled
Are more technologically advanced and
violent games more engaging?
Ivory and Kalyanaraman (2007) found that more recent, more
technologically advanced games led to increased feelings of engagement and involvement (attention to the game, focus on the game, emotions experienced and physiological arousal which was measured by skin conductance and self-ratings of
excitement). This finding would appear to justify the development of increasingly realistic games.
Ivory and Kalyanaraman also compared measures of presence
Role of violent content in player
motivation and immersion
Przybyski, Ryan and Rigby (2009) predicted that enjoyment of,
value of and immersion in games are predicted by players’ needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness.
They carried out two surveys and six experiments to examine
whether violent game content further predicts player enjoyment, value and immersion in games.
Player ratings of enjoyment and value in games and desire for
future play were strongly correlated with needs for competence and autonomy.
Violent content did not further predict enjoyment and value in
games and desire for future play, nor was it related to player needs variables (competence and autonomy).
Violent content did not lead to more enjoyment compared with
Engagement and learning
Many of the features that make games
engaging also support effective learning.
Gentile and Gentile (2008): violent video
games systematically and effectively use
educational principles of learning,
Gentile and Gentile (2008):
games incorporate 7 principles of
effective learning
(
1) games should have clear objectives, at multiple levels of difficulty and should adapt to the prior knowledge, skills and pace of each learner(2) games require learning to be active with practice and feedback to the point of mastery.
(3) knowledge and skills should be over-learned so that they become automatic (4) games should include both intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Motivational theory
tends to emphasise the importance of intrinsic motivation to effective learning. (5) activities in video games should be presented in levels of increasing difficulty,
complexity or pace, with skills at lower levels prerequisites for higher levels. This is especially true for technical and game skills.
(6) video games encourage a close-to-optimal combination of massed and distributed practice
Online games promote higher level
reasoning and argument skills
Steinkuehler and Duncan (2009) analysed the scientific
reasoning skills displayed by players in their contributions
to the online discussion boards while they played the
popular online game, World of Warcraft (WoW).
They found qualitative evidence that players engage in
high-level discussions and arguments in these fora such
as using data and argument, building on others’ ideas and
using system based reasoning.
Conclusion: games which were designed for
Impact of gaming on perceptual and
cognitive skills
There is strong evidence that playing generic entertainment
games leads to improvements in visual perceptual skills.
Green and Bavelier (2006) found that games players
performed much more accurately on an enumeration task,
where an array of squares is flashed up quickly on a
screen.
There is a sharp drop in performance on enumeration
tasks once a critical number of squares is reached
(typically about four). The critical number is two more for
VGPS than NVGPs.
VGPS were also better than NVGPs at tracking multiple
Extent of the impact of games on
perceptual and cognitive abilities
Boot, Kramer, Simons, Fabiani and Gratton (2008) compared
performance of expert game players and non-game players on tests of attention, memory and executive control.
The cross sectional study showed that video games experts
tracked objects moving at greater speeds, performed more
accurately in a visual short-term memory test, switched between tasks more quickly, and made decisions about rotated objects more quickly and accurately.
A number of effects that had previously been found however
were not significantly different in the current study for gamers versus non-gamers. These included performance on an
Extent of the impact of games on
perceptual and cognitive abilities
Barlett et al (2009) examined whether
playing video games helps players to
cognitively ‘‘warm-up.” They found that
playing (violent or non-violent) video games
between two trials of a cognitive test
(assessing short term working memory,
visual attention, mathematical decision
making and auditory perception) led to
Games for learning: knowledge
acquisition/content understanding
evidence of increases in knowledge acquisition and/or enjoyment in games across curricular areas
structures in Civil engineering (Ebner and Holzinger, 2007) vocabulary learning (Yip and Kwan, 2006)
the operation of the heart (Cameron and Dwyer, 2005) computer memory concepts (Papastergiou, 2009)
the respiratory chain of the inner mitochondrial membrane
(Yaman, Nerdel and Bayrhube, 2008)
statistics (Nte and Stephens, 2008)
Pedagogical variables influencing
effectiveness of GBL
Several authors make the point that simply introducing a game into learning will not necessarily lead to better learning.
those with prior videogaming experience consistently performed better than those without (Orvis et al, 2008) providing narrative structure in an ARG led to increase in
knowledge but not to a more positive attitude to collaborative learning nor more motivation for learning history (Huizenga, Admiraal, Akkerman and ten Dam, 2007)
feedback provided to players was important in effective learning (Cameron and Dwyer, 2005)
worked out examples had a more positive influence on the
Implicit learning
Ciavarro, Dobson and Goodman (2008)
incorporated animplicit learning mechanism into a computer game to play ice hockey
by penalizing aggressive behaviour or rewarding positive
behaviour (with a greater chance or scoring and winning) the “karma” mechanism aimed to change players’ behaviours to be less aggressive, although players were not explicitly
informed of this goal in the general instructions provided about how to play the game.
implicitly rewarding good behaviour could lead to positive
Games as a new tool /methodology in studying
psychological characteristics
van Reekum and Johnstone (2004) manipulated goal
conduciveness (whether the event was congruent with the
desired goal or not) and intrinsic pleasantness (subjective
appraisals of emotional events) on physiological responses
(cardiac activity, skin conductance, skin temperature and
muscle activity and emotion self-report) while playing an
action adventure game (Xquest).
Goal conduciveness was associated with significant
autonomic effects including changes to interbeat interval,
pulse transit time, skin conductance and finger temperature
while the manipulation of intrinsic pleasantness had little
impact on physiological responses.
van Reekum and Johnstone view the computer game
Conclusions
Playing computer games leads to diverse
outcomes and impacts
Useful to develop an organising framework to
describe outcomes and impacts
Some of the strongest evidence of the impact
of games is in the area of “unintentional”
outcomes
Many of the features which make games
Areas for future research
Further exploration of links between
engagement and learning
Examine what different game genre can
offer in more detail
Explore use of computer games in social
science
Examine use of computer games as a tool
