Paper Abstract - Dorina Miron & Mary Ellen Maxwell

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ABSTRACT

The Impact of Videogame Playing on Children's Learning of Prosocial Scripts from Edutainment

Dorina Miron & Mary Ellen Maxwell

The literature to date generally indicates that violent video game playing may have negative effects such as desensitization to violence, decreased empathy, stronger proviolent attitudes (Funk, Buchman, Schimming, & Hagan, 2000), increased feelings of hostility, and increased laboratory aggression (Anderson & Dill, 2000). But according to Mitchell (1988), electronic games can induce a flow state (i.e., intense feelings of enjoyment that occur when a balance between skill and challenge is attained). The flow state has been associated with enhanced learning (Moneta & Czikszentmihalyi, 1996) and enhanced susceptibility to suggestion (Center for Media Education, 1996). By analogy with Zillmann's excitation transfer theory, we expect a short lag of the flow state (a couple of minutes, depending on the child's degree of involvement in the videogame), which enhances learning from material presented immediately after playing.

The present study examines in what ways violent game playing interferes with the prosocial education children are normally exposed to during nonplay time, how much children learn from the two types of sources and how much of that they apply for solving subsequently encountered conflict problems.

An experiment was conducted with 120 seven-year-olds¹ from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The participants were run individually in university labs by teams of two research assistants.

The experiment design was 2 x 2 between subjects: game treatment (violent/Spyro the Dragon vs. non-violent/Rage Racer) by sex².

The experimental materials were: the above-mentioned videogames (played for two 15-minute intervals; game learning practice time up to 30 minutes before the experiment), a prosocial edutainment video clip (excerpt from the Off the Track episode of Puzzle Place: 8 minutes; administered between the two game playing intervals), and two video clips featuring similar conflict situations (excerpts from Arthur's Big Hit: 1 minute each; administered before and after playing the videogame).

The control variables considered in the study were: cognitive development (Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test administered to the child), fine motor development (two sections of the Early Screening Profiles developed by the American Guidance Service), the child's aggressive tendencies (Parent Rating Scale of the Behavior Assessment System for Children), the child's exposure to video games (time per week-Questionnaire for Parents), and demographics (race, family income, parents' education-Questionnaire for Parents).

The hypothetical flow state assumed to mediate learning was assessed using experimenter observation records for the two game playing intervals (concentration, excitement, game enjoyment, reluctance to discontinue playing) and child self-reports (game challenge, personal competence at the game, game enjoyment, reluctance to discontinue playing).

The dependent variables were: knowledge acquisition from the prosocial edutainment program and situation evaluation (perceived harm and danger); knowledge acquisition, situation evaluation, solution anticipation, and the participant's role in solving each of the two conflict situation problems. The solutions were audiotaped and content analyzed (number of solutions/scripts transferred from the prosocial clip and from the videogame played; number of violent solution scripts and participant role scripts).

References

¹Given the importance of preschool and early school education for the acquisition of prosocial behaviors, we chose to test children aged between 7 and 8.
²The literature on electronic game effects has revealed marked sex differences, with boys showing stronger influences (more violent tendencies after playing violent games).

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