Al-Khasawneh 1

Muhanad Al-Khasawneh

Kari Carter

English Composition II

March 22, 2021

Literature Review

Video games are becoming more and more important in our day to day lives. With the

advancement of the Internet and other technology, teenagers and children are spending more

time online, playing video games with their friends. One criticism of video games is that it

negatively affects the school performance and education of adolescents, and when you think

about it, this seems logical. If children are spending more time on video games with their friends,

they’ll spend less time studying and focusing on their schoolwork. As technology continues to

advance, it’s important that our youth are educated, and leisure activities such as video games

could become distractions that prove detrimental to their learning. As a result, it is important to

investigate how video games have a negative impact on the learning and education of teenagers.

The argument that video games have a negative impact on education is an idea that has

been around for quite some time, and there is a lot of conflicting data that supports this

sentiment, as well as data and studies done that indicate video games have little impact on

learning. One problem that consistently came up during research on this topic is the idea of a

video game addiction. In StuDocu’s blog post, “Positive and Negative Effects of Gaming on

Student Performance”, they go into detail on some of the negative implications of a video game

addiction. Because teenagers are playing video games so often, they can experience effects such

as fatigue during school. Likewise, they may not complete their assignments, or become
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involved in school activities, because they would rather play video games. They also explain that

those who experience video game addictions are often subject to mental health issues, such as

anxiety or depression, and they often employ the services of a therapist to deal with these.

Another problem that consistently occurred during research is that not much research has

actually been done on this topic, because of the high number of variables involved in school

performance. Video games may play a cause in poor school performance, however there are

numerous other factors that can cause this, such as a student’s home life, their relationships, the

difficulty of the class, the school curriculum, and more. Despite these outside factors, in my

research I found more sources and research claiming that video games have a negative impact on

learning. In Salman Khalil’s research article in the Indian Journal of Community Health, they

studied 50 males and 50 females from four different schools, for a total of 400 participants,

interviewing them using a pre-tested questionnaire. They found that 63% of males have shown

poor academic performance, compared to only 33% of females, and that 85% of males, and

82.5% of females play video games (Khalil 2019). Another study, done by the Northern Ireland

office of Britain’s National Children’s Bureau, which “explores issues affecting children and

young people in the United Kingdom” (Evans 2015), examined 600 students over a span of two

years. Although this study was done almost six years ago, they found that those who played less

video games generally did better in school compared to those who played more video games – in

fact, “41% of students who used gaming devices two or more times a day received passing

grades on school exams … compared with 77% of those who rarely played the games” (Evans

2015). Through these two studies, one would assume that video games have an incredibly

negative effect on video games, and this sentiment is supported across numerous studies.
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However, this isn’t always the case. Although some research has been done that indicates

video games are bad for children’s learning, results can sometimes conflict across studies

because there generally isn’t uniformity in the experiences of all students. For example, one

study explained in Gwen Dewar’s article “The effects of video games on school achievement”,

had a unique methodology, with negative results. In this study, 64 boys without video game

consoles living in the United States were divided into two groups, one of which was given video

game systems immediately, and the other given video game systems after the study. They were

studied for four months, and they found that kids with new game systems “spend less time doing

homework [and] performed worse on standardized tests of reading and writing” (Dewar 2018).

However, in a study outlined in Jason MurDock’s Newsweek article, “Do Video Games Affect

Student Grades? New Research Says Yes – Just Not Enough to Matter”, that involved 3,554

students, they found that although video games could have a small impact on school

performance, it wasn’t significant enough to matter in the long run. (MurDock 2018). Both

studies come from reliable sources, but the results are different, which could be a result of the

previously mentioned factors, such as the coursework, the teaching style, the difficulty of exams,

and more. In fact, the second study could be seen as more reliable due to a larger sample size, as

the first study is relatively small.

Another common point that I found in my research is that school performance can

actually be linked to the type of game that a teenager is playing, and that video games can in

some cases cause improvement in student performance. In Gwen Dewar’s article, “The effects of

video games on school achievement”, she discusses a study involving more than 190,000

students, finding a very small effect on video games as a whole on learning. However, one aspect

of learning that was heavily impacted is reading. In her article, she explains that students that
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regularly play multiplayer games typically have lower reading scores – this effect wasn’t

observed for those who regularly play single-player games. In fact, she discusses another study

with similar findings, and that single-player games actually were associated with a boost in

school performance (Dewar 2018). StuDocu’s article, “Positive and Negative Effects of Gaming

on Student Performance” also discussed a study done in Australia, with over 12,000 high school

students, that found students that played video games regularly scored higher on math, reading,

and science, than those who didn’t (StuDocu 2021). However, as mentioned previously, there’s

no definite way to know what is causing the improvement and poor performance in school –

there are simply too many factors at play. Despite this, with such large sample sizes, you can get

a pretty good idea of the impacts video games has on learning.

One problem surrounding this topic is that because the Internet is accessible by everyone,

anyone could go out and post false information about video games and claim that they are good

or bad. During my research I came across numerous articles that had no evidence or support to

back up the information. One article would say that video games cause students to be isolated,

and another would claim it helps their social skills because they’re playing with friends. In

general, it’s important that the information that is taken seriously be backed up by substantial

evidence.

After all of this research, it is clear further research needs to be done on this topic. There

are too many studies with conflicting results, and, coupled with the numerous amounts of factors

that go into school performance makes it difficult to truly know the effects of video games on

learning and school performance. However, with the research I’ve done thus far, it could be

concluded that video games, if enjoyed in moderation, have little impact on education, but if

video games are consumed excessively, student performance could decrease.

Works Cited

Dewar, Gwen. “The Effects of Video Games on School Achievement.” Parenting

Science – The Science of Child-Rearing and Child Development, 2018,

www.parentingscience.com/Effects-of-video-games-on-school.html.

English, VOA Learning. “Study Links Video Game Use to Problems in School.” VOA,

Study Links Video Game Use to Problems in School, 21 Oct. 2015,

learningenglish.voanews.com/a/study-links-video-game-use-with-weaker-school-

performance/3007625.html.

Khalil, Salman. “Impact of Playing Violent Video Games Among School Going

Children.” Indian Journal of Community Health, vol. 31, no. 3, 2019,

doi:https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=25&sid=6d582f12-b13d-

45f8-ba08-db70ea42ab8d%40sessionmgr103.

Murdock, Jason. “Do Video Games Affect Student Grades? New Research Says Yes—

Just Not Enough to Matter.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 18 Sept. 2018,

www.newsweek.com/do-video-games-affect-student-grades-new-research-says-yes-just-

not-enough-1125747.

StuDocu. “Positive & Negative Effects of Gaming on Student Performance.” StuDocu

Blog, 29 Jan. 2021, www.studocu.com/blog/en/positive-negative-effects-of-gaming-on-

student-performance.