Over the years we have heard very often about the combination of video games And education, both in its possible positive and negative aspects. There are those who favor the first “version”, arguing that video games can also represent a valid support in the school environment, but there are also those who favor the “pessimistic” vision, evaluating videogame entertainment as a potential damage ( not only in school performance, but also in socializing).
The perennial struggle between supporters and detractors seems to have turned towards an advantage for the former. In recent years, more and more studies have shown how in reality video games can prove to be a crucial tool for the training of students and some companies, such as Ubisoft with Assassin’s Creed or Mojang with Minecraft, have already taken decisive steps forward to “enter” the world of school through videogames.
A recent study, conducted by the universities of Serbia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, can be found on the platform ScienceDirect, shed even more light on the subject. As reported in the abstract of the scientific article, it has been shown that video games are a great benefit to high achieving students; these same students also spend a lot of time playing video games, but despite this they still manage to get very high marks.
The best approach ever, the study reports, can be summed up in dualism play hard – study hard: in other words, the most assiduous students in studying are able to implement a self-reward mechanism, spending the same long time in the study that they then spend in video games.
However, it should be noted that the study was conducted in a “small public university in Saudi Arabia”: this means that the sample of students surveyed may be too small to report reliable results, which on a large scale may reveal something profoundly different.
In any case, the study aims to provide possible tools to be put in the hands of videogame companies, for the realization in the future of projects capable of combining videogames and education both at school and university level.
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