Pay Attention and Level Up: How Video Games Can Boost Student Learning
When Atari launched its first video game Pong in November 1972 no one could predict how big the gaming industry will become. Throughout decades, the world of video entertainment kept changing constantly bringing new exciting games to each generation. Today, gamers recognize many different genres and sub-genres. Game developers are getting more and more innovative and creative in introducing the most unexpected storylines. They are quite successful in erasing the boundaries between video art and technology. Meanwhile, game publishers are going above and beyond to attract and recruit new players to the exciting world of video games.
This type of entertainment has quickly widespread and became a recreational activity for the masses. In some cases, it has turned into addiction. This was a call for scientists and health experts to conduct in-deep research. What they found was a surprise for everybody. As a hobby and occasional and controlled activity, gaming can be quite beneficial. It changes the physical structure of the players’ brains influencing the studying process and improving cognitive skills.
Playing Video Games Help Students Pay Attention More?
A few years ago scientific journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience published research on the influence of video games on students’ brains. They found that those who played games for one hour increased their visual selective activity performances. It also demonstrated certain changes in attention span brain activity. When experts analyzed these results it proved that while playing video game student can significantly improve decision-making skills.
College activities demand high proficiency and highly-developed problem-solving skills. Essay writing, researching, finding valuable academic resources, and using various curriculums are just a few most common examples. It’s hardly a surprise that less skilled student might need and seek solutions or pay someone to write an essay to finish numerous tasks on time and successfully. However, observations showed that those who play video games tend to use essay samples differently. They are capable to learn not only how to research but also how to compose their college papers better and make them more academically suitable by using these professionally written products.
Four Benefits of Video Games for Students
It’s important to emphasize that these and other benefits can occur only if video games are used in moderation. Otherwise, it can become time- wasting activity and cause addiction and other serious health issues. Education always comes first, definitely before playing video games.
Boosting Creativity
Some video games require advanced planning, negotiating, and different strategical approaches to pass the level. These tasks can inspire students to be more creative in finding solutions and help them learn how to think outside of the box. It’s also an entertaining way to develop combinatorial thinking ability.
Healthy Competition
Every good playing session includes some form of competition. Whether playing against other players or for the sake of a better score, the main goal is to make some progress in each session and move forward. Video games are the perfect ambient to express healthy competitive urges. Not only that but also to learn how to handle losing and train the brain to take it as a challenge to become a better player.
Teamwork Skills
Multi-player video games are a great playground to learn some valuable skills useful for study groups or any workplace. Every team wants a productive member. Video games can teach young people how to assess their capabilities and find the best way to contribute to team efforts. They can also learn how to value their work and development through the success of the group.
Leadership Skills
Good leaders can change the outcome. This is applicable both in video games and in life as well. Video games allow learning how to build confidence gradually. Some games even offer an option to take turns leading the team and following the leader. This is beneficial because young people can understand the burden of leadership better. It’s also great practice to give support to leaders knowing what kind of problems they have to face.
In Conclusion – It’s Useful, Improves Learning Ability!
Every new level of any video game requires learning new things. This is one of the reasons why there are already many educational video games on the market. They are primarily used to motivate students to engage in the learning process. While some are still questioning the effectiveness of this type of learning others claim that the 140% improvement made with educational video games should not be disregarded.