Learning through Video Games

Games as a form of education are becoming more utilized and recognized within education due to the wide range of benefits they can provide. Games are demonstrated to improve attention, focus, reaction time, pro-social skills and effecting of positive mood states (Granic et al., 2014).

How do games foster creativity?

Video games have been shown to enhance children’s creative capacities and to be positively associated with creativity (Jackson et al., 2012). Gómez-Maureira & Kniestedt (2019) claim that video games elicit curiosity and Celik et al., (2016); Hardy et al., (2017) have found associations between higher curiosity and greater creativity.

Moreover, ‘flow’ is a common experience reported among gamers (Granic et al., 2014) and flow is defined by intense concentration and absorption in something (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Flow has been associated with higher levels of creativity (Schutte & Malouff, 2020). Moreover, implementing game-based learning approaches in education can result in greater flow and lower cognitive load (Chang et al., 2017). I can attest to this experience of flow, curiosity and creativity as a gamer myself, particularly experiencing this within the creative/survival mode of Minecraft. When playing I find myself losing a sense of time as I am caught up in creating buildings or curiously exploring different areas or testing out new things. Some creative structures I have created in Minecraft are shown in figure 1. Minecraft also has an Education Edition which specifically caters for learners/teachers. There are also plenty of lesson plans/activities available to view within the Minecraft education website. One example of a lesson plan I found that would stimulate student creativity, flow and curiosity is Pixel Selfies.

Figure 1. Screenshot of my creations in Minecraft.

Video 1. Shows some creative doors in Minecraft

Pedagogical Considerations

For teachers considering game-based learning Mayer (2016) advises healthy scepticism and suggests if implemented should target learning outcomes and align with classroom programs/activities. Furthermore, teachers seeking to implement educational games into their pedagogy should consider the level of fun offered by the game as some educational games fail to meet this essential function resulting in lower flow and thus lower creativity for students (Granic et al., 2014). Teachers desiring a high level of creative flow from gaming should aim to make activities more individual orientated as cooperative gaming results in lower flow than solo gaming (Kaye, 2016). Another issue not to be overlooked is video game addiction. A study by Thomas & Martin (2010) found that 5% of Tasmanian students’ met the criteria for computer game addiction and that these findings could be similar in other Australian states. 

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References

Celik,P.,Storme,M.,Davila,A.,&Myszkowski,N.(2016).Work-relatedcuriosityposi-tivelypredictsworkerinnovation.Journal of Management Development, 35,1184–1194.https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-01-2016-0013v.

Chang, C. C., Liang, C., Chou, P. N., & Lin, G. Y. (2017). Is game-based learning better in flow experience and various types of cognitive load than non-game-based learning? Perspective from multimedia and media richness richness. Computers in Human Behavior, 71, 218-227.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Toward a psychology of optimal experience. In Flow and the foundations of positive psychology (pp. 209-226). Springer, Dordrecht.

Gómez-Maureira, M., & Kniestedt, I. (2019). Exploring video games that invoke curiosity. Entertainment Computing, 32, Entertainment Computing, December 2019, Vol.32.

Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. (2014). The benefits of playing video games. American psychologist, 69(1), 66-78

Hardy, J., Ness, A., & Mecca, J. (2017). Outside the box: Epistemic curiosity as a predictor of creative problem solving and creative performance. Personality and Individual Differences, 104, 230-237.

Jackson, L. A., Witt, E. A., Games, A. I., Fitzgerald, H. E., von Eye, A.,& Zhao, Y. (2012). Information technology use and creativity: Findingsfrom the Children and Technology Project.Computers in Human Be-havior, 28,370 –376.doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.006

Kaye, L. (2016). Exploring flow experiences in cooperative digital gaming contexts. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 286-291.

Mayer, R. E. (2016). What Should Be the Role of Computer Games in Education? Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(1), 20-26

Schutte, N., & Malouff, J. (2020). Connections between curiosity, flow and creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 152, Personality and Individual Differences, 01 January 2020, Vol.152.

Thomas, N., & Martin, F. (2010). Video‐arcade game, computer game and Internet activities of Australian students: Participation habits and prevalence of addiction. Australian Journal of Psychology, 62(2), 59-66.

Uttal, D. H., Meadow, N. G., Tipton, E., Hand, L. L., Alden, A. R.,Warren, C., & Newcombe, N. S. (2013). The malleability of spatialskills: A meta-analysis of training studies.Psychological Bulletin, 139,352– 402.doi:10.1037/a0028446

Wai, J., Lubinski, D., Benbow, C. P., & Steiger, J. H. (2010). Accom-plishment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM) and its relation to STEM educational dose: A 25-year longi-tudinal study.Journal of Educational Psychology, 102,860 – 871.doi:10.1037/a0019454