{"id":211,"date":"2021-07-23T21:46:45","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T21:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/?post_type=chapter&p=211"},"modified":"2021-07-23T22:10:49","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T22:10:49","slug":"6-5-4-video-games-in-the-world-of-education","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/chapter\/6-5-4-video-games-in-the-world-of-education\/","title":{"rendered":"6.5.4 Video games in the world of education (research essay)"},"content":{"raw":"

April 2021<\/h3>\r\nThe relationship between education and new technologies, more specifically video games,\u00a0has\u00a0long been debated about and judged without a full understanding of the actual potential of the combination of the two.\u00a0New methods such as using video games as an education tool are almost always overlooked by educators even though they may\u00a0be missing out on a niche form of education that can keep students far more engaged in the subject they are learning while also encouraging them to continue learning because they are also having fun.\u00a0It is also often overlooked that playing video games can potentially in some way increase the\u00a0players'\u00a0skills in communication through the usage and improvement of communication\u00a0required in some games.\u00a0I share the belief that video games have great potential to be used as a tool for education if more educators would give them a shot and test them out.\u00a0I also believe that video games\u00a0have very high potential to improve the communication skills of those who play them.\u00a0There are also many researchers and educators who share these beliefs and would like to see the use of video games as an education tool more\u00a0widespread in the future. Many of these researchers and educators that believe in the use of video games as an education tool are of this opinion because they have tested this on students and found results that sway them to see the potential of this form of teaching. Though obviously video games could never become a primary education tool or mainstream form of communication, I think that video games could be\u00a0utilized well as a form of education and that they could be used by many\u00a0as a way to\u00a0improve their communication skills.\r\n\r\nPersonally, I think video games have\u00a0a good positive effect on the communication skills of those who play them.\u00a0I have been playing video games for a large portion of my life and I think the form of communication within some of the more competitive games can\u00a0have an effect on\u00a0my communication skills. I think they do this by\u00a0forcing the player to communicate in the typical form of the game which\u00a0then\u00a0have an effect on\u00a0real world communication skills.\u00a0In my experience,\u00a0this\u00a0increase in communication\u00a0skill\u00a0comes from the specific form of communication that happens in competitive video\u00a0games.\u00a0This includes games such as one of my personal favorites, Call of Duty Warzone.\u00a0In order to communicate effectively, the players must communicate through quick and effective\u00a0bursts of information.\u00a0In Warzone, my teammates and I must communicate quickly to tell each other important information such as the location\u00a0of enemies, or where to find valuable resources such as weapons, ammunition and armor.\u00a0I can do this by either talking to\u00a0the\u00a0teammates through a microphone, or using a system called pinging. Pinging is an\u00a0in game\u00a0system where you look at an item or location you want to show to your teammates, then hit a button to place a ping there that is displayed to the rest of your team.\u00a0The most effective way to communicate in Warzone is a combination of both\u00a0pinging\u00a0and rapid verbal communication. This way a player can verbally tell their teammates exactly what they are talking about while simultaneously pinging it to show their teammates visually.\u00a0With the visual indicator on the screen from the ping, and the verbal description from teammates, it should be\u00a0the most\u00a0efficient\u00a0way to tell a\u00a0teammates\u00a0something quickly.\u00a0While some other games also have a pinging system, most force the players to be most reliant on communicating verbally with quick and information packed\u00a0sentences.\u00a0This is because while playing these games, the players do not have time to communicate with each other\u00a0in long detailed\u00a0sentences. They need to cut down the time it takes to relay information to teammates or often it will be too late for that information to be important anymore.\u00a0In the time I have played video games I\u00a0find\u00a0most of this to be accurate and I believe it has had at least some effect on my communication skills in high stress situations. I also have personal\u00a0experience with the use of video games education.\u00a0When I was in elementary\u00a0school,\u00a0I frequently used a computer game to help me practice my speed of completing math equations. Even though I was learning the same thing that the teacher was teaching at school, I was much more engaged and interested because\u00a0a\u00a0game\u00a0was more fun that simply doing equations\u00a0on a sheet of paper.\u00a0I think\u00a0that this kind of education can be used much more often to keep students engaged\u00a0with\u00a0the subject they are learning.\u00a0Overall, I have a good connection to this subject and feel confident in the positive relationship between video games and education as well as communication\u00a0skills.\r\n\r\nFirst, I will explore\u00a0the research\u00a0on the topic of the relationship between playing video games and communication skills. A\u00a0question that I think is important to answer about this topic is how does video game communication effect real world communication skills.\u00a0Many researchers have studied this relationship to examine video\u00a0games\u00a0effects on communication. One such researcher is Kenneth Horowitz\u00a0in his article \u201cVideo Games and English as a Second Language: The Effect of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games on The Willingness to Communicate and Communicative Anxiety of College Students in Puerto Rico\u201d. In this article Horowitz\u00a0studies a group of students from Puerto Rico who are attempting to learn English while using video games as one of their forms of\u00a0learning. As they play these games it works on their English communication\u00a0skills\u00a0furthering their knowledge of the language.\u00a0Horowitz regards new technology and the internet\u00a0as a whole as\u00a0a fascinating new potential form of education and more specifically a form of improving\u00a0the communication\u00a0skills in those who are learning\u00a0a new language\u00a0(Horowitz 379).\u00a0Because this study revolves around students who are learning\u00a0English\u00a0rather than improving on the English\u00a0skills\u00a0they\u00a0already\u00a0have it is a slightly different situation than the research question asks but still\u00a0mostly related enough to be relevant.\u00a0The research was gathered through two questionaries given through the internet to the research participants\u00a0further relating the connection to the internet and technology to education\u00a0(Horowitz 391).\u00a0This means there was a variety of ways for the participants of the study to express the\u00a0affect\u00a0the study had on them to diversify the results.\u00a0While the participants played a wide variety of video game titles and\u00a0genres, the results and levels of communication\u00a0between the players did not change but stayed at a similar level relative to each other (Horowitz 398).\u00a0While the messages players communicate to each other in these different games titles and genres may be different it still requires the same kind of communicative skill to get the message across to teammates effectively.\u00a0Overall, the relationship between the\u00a0time of\u00a0video games played and the\u00a0skill in communication is a positive correlation (Horowitz 398).\u00a0When applied to the research question about Video Games correlation to real world communication skills, Horowitz\u2019s research would seem to\u00a0suggest that Video games do in fact have a positive\u00a0effect\u00a0on a\u00a0person's\u00a0real life communication skills in a significant way.\u00a0Another article that deals with this research question is \u201cGames at Work: Examining a Model of Team Effectiveness in an Interdependent Gaming Task\u201d by\u00a0Sylvia Luu and Anupama Narayan.\u00a0This article is another one that deals with how video games and gamification can help people work better as a team in other aspects of life other than video games.\u00a0The term gamification is used frequently throughout the\u00a0article,\u00a0and I think this term is a great term to relate to this essay and the research questions within\u00a0it as a whole.\u00a0As stated in the article, gamification could be described as a way of applying skills and aspects of video game behavior into real life situations and circumstances\u00a0as a way to\u00a0more efficiently\u00a0handle them when the need arises (Luu and Narayan 110).\u00a0The gamification of everyday tasks or especially tasks that have to do with communication and education relates directly to the research question of video games\u00a0having an effect on\u00a0real world communication skills.\u00a0In this article\u2019s\u00a0experiment a wide range of students volunteered to take part by\u00a0working together in a video game designed to specifically bring out the teamwork and communication skills of those who played it (Luu and Narayan 114).\u00a0In contrast to Horowitz\u2019s study, this experiment uses its own game in contrast with Horowitz allowing the participants in the study to play whatever game they chose by\u00a0themselves.\u00a0This provides a different point of view and wider range of research data to support this main concept of improvement in communication\u00a0skill.\u00a0In the end of the\u00a0study,\u00a0it was shown that more communication between the players in the game lead to better performance overall\u00a0and satisfaction between teammates (Luu and Narayan 116).\u00a0When the players who participated in the study communicated more it\u00a0led\u00a0to a higher rate of success and level of approving between teammates which\u00a0could be translated to communication in real life scenarios and demonstrates how the communication in video games is not all that different from communication in real life.\u00a0Yet another article that\u00a0deals with the ways video games\u00a0have an effect on\u00a0a\u00a0person's\u00a0communication skills is \u201cUsing video game to enhance English communication skills\u201d by\u00a0Alex Roach and\u00a0Yeski\u00a0Utami.\u00a0Once\u00a0again,\u00a0this article similarly dives into the gamification of education and communication and\u00a0how video games can\u00a0incentivize\u00a0and reward\u00a0the improvement of communication skills.\u00a0The article goes over several types of games that can benefit from good communication skills including co-operative\u00a0games\u00a0which are directly related to the players working together\u00a0and communicating\u00a0as well as they can\u00a0in order to accomplish\u00a0their tasks\u00a0effectively (Roach and\u00a0Utami\u00a0202). Multiple different genres and types of video games\u00a0have varying degrees of connection to communication and how it can be improved.\u00a0The research done in this article was based on two different games played\u00a0by several groups of students\u00a0in order to diversify and expand the range of results possible to be shown in the data of the experiment\u00a0(Roach and\u00a0Utami\u00a0203).\u00a0With\u00a0multiple different games to play it becomes easier to show and more apparent that the results of one game are not an outlier to the hypothesis.\u00a0In the results of the experiment, it is believed that the communication between players had a very positive effect on the\u00a0success in playing the games and that good communication was very important and incentivized for a good performance\u00a0(Roach and\u00a0Utami\u00a0204).\u00a0When the students in the experiment communicated\u00a0better, they performed better in the\u00a0experiment which shows the strong connection between playing video games and communication skills.\u00a0Another, more specific article on this topic is \u201cCan game-based learning enhance engineering communication skills?\u201d by\u00a0Cheyrl Bondar and Renee Clark.\u00a0Obviously,\u00a0this article is of a similar\u00a0topic\u00a0as\u00a0the last few but is more specifically relegated to the topic of engineering students using video games in a similar way as the others.\u00a0This article is based on a\u00a0study on several hundred engineering students\u00a0who were asked to write and deliver a presentation on a subject while first\u00a0using video games\u00a0as a way to\u00a0see how the effect the skill in communication\u00a0among these engineering students (Bondar and Clark 25-26).\u00a0Though the final presentation these students are composing is not about video games or communication skills, the way\u00a0video games are implemented into the study still creates an effective situation for the research to show how video games can\u00a0affect\u00a0communication skills in these students.\u00a0The way the video games were used in this study was\u00a0the students developed their own games specifically designed around\u00a0different types of communication such as verbal, nonverbal and written communication. These games were meant to test each\u00a0student in\u00a0how well they can\u00a0properly\u00a0use these different types of communication to complete their assigned final presentations (Bondar and Clark 35).\u00a0As the students play these several different games with varying\u00a0objectives,\u00a0they are also working together\u00a0closely\u00a0much like how they will need to for their presentations at the end of the year.\u00a0In the\u00a0final results\u00a0of this study, it was discovered that the positive\u00a0correlation in communication skills was only found in the level of out loud verbal communication\u00a0skills\u00a0(Bondar and Clark 39). This finding shows how playing video games improves the communication each\u00a0of the\u00a0players\u00a0have\u00a0with\u00a0and between each\u00a0other. It seems to show that as the players proceed through the games,\u00a0they mainly communicate out loud with each other even when playing the games designed around other forms of communication therefor having a much greater\u00a0effect\u00a0on\u00a0their verbal communication skills rather than non-verbal communication skills.\u00a0Overall, this article and its research show that even when working towards an unrelated goal, video game players who are effectively communicating with each other\u00a0will see a great improvement in their level of skill in that same kind of verbal communication.\u00a0My second to last piece of writing on this\u00a0particular research\u00a0question is a CNN article\u00a0titled \u201cVideo Games Help Children Improve Literacy, Communication and Mental Well-Being, Survey Finds\u201d by\u00a0Alaa\u00a0Elassar.\u00a0This article and its message\u00a0are\u00a0based on a survey administered to several thousand teenagers in a small range of different ages on how they believe\u00a0playing\u00a0video games\u00a0effects\u00a0their lives. They are asked about how they think playing video games\u00a0has an effect on\u00a0multiple different aspects including their\u00a0skill in reading\u00a0as well as their writing ability\u00a0(Elassar). Many\u00a0people\u00a0including\u00a0those in the age range of this\u00a0survey\u00a0know that playing video games and reading and writing skills are much more closely related than most would think. These teenagers who participated in the survey\u00a0also report that the video games they play are a major topic of discussion between them and their friends when they talk (Elassar). While this\u00a0particular finding\u00a0may not show direct increase in communication skill related to video games, it does show that playing video games can\u00a0increase the amount of communicating a person does throughout their day both while playing and when they are not.\u00a0Many of these teens think playing their video games\u00a0are\u00a0a fun and entertaining way for them to build connections and\u00a0friendships\u00a0both with people they know in\u00a0real\u00a0life and with new people they meet online through the games (Elassar).\u00a0This shows that playing video games creates and\u00a0strengthens\u00a0connections between those who play them together.\u00a0In a somewhat unrelated note, the participants of the survey\u00a0also report that playing video games helps reduce their stress and other negative feelings (Elassar).\u00a0Overall, the playing of video games has a positive effect on most children who play them both in their ability to communicate and on their mental\u00a0well being.\u00a0Finally, I have one more online article\u00a0titled \u201cVideo Games Level\u00a0up\u00a0Life Skills\u201d by Kathryn Hulick.\u00a0This article is a simple online piece of writing that conveys the message of\u00a0how video games can build their valuable life skills such as communication and improvisation\u00a0or resourcefulness (Hulick). As players play video\u00a0games,\u00a0they\u00a0work on these skills by stimulating their minds in a casual and entertaining way. The article references\u00a0a study conducted in Scotland about\u00a0students who played video\u00a0games during their school week to see if it had any effect on their school performance\u00a0(Hulick).\u00a0In comparison to the control group that played no video games during the study\u00a0did not show as big of an improvement\u00a0in the traits they were asked to report on, resourcefulness, adaptability and communication skills, as the group\u00a0of students who did play video games consistently\u00a0throughout the two months the study was conducted over\u00a0(Hulick).\u00a0All of\u00a0these articles display a very strong connection between\u00a0communication skills and the amount of video games the players play.\r\n\r\nThe second part of this essay will be focused\u00a0around\u00a0a different connection to video games.\u00a0The research question for this portion is\u00a0can video games be used as an effective education tool.\u00a0The first source I would like to use for this topic is\u00a0\u201cVideo Games Can Develop Graduate Skills in Higher Education Students: A Randomized Trial\u201d by Matthew Barr.\u00a0This\u00a0article is based on a trail to\u00a0show how video games can be used as an education tool.\u00a0The study is about\u00a0a group of subjects who were asked to play video games and report how they were\u00a0affected\u00a0in a cognitive\u00a0and social context (Barr 86).\u00a0The participants play a wide variety of games that have the potential to have educational value to explore many different\u00a0methods of teaching from a video game.\u00a0By the end of the research, it was shown that the students involved in the study did show good results for a test administered by the researchers possibly indicating a link between video games and effective communication skills (Barr\u00a090). This shows what my research question aims to ask that\u00a0video games while not a main source of education can be used as a tool for educating in some instances where it applies and for specific skills. The next\u00a0source for this research question is titled quite simply \u201cGaming as a Teaching Tool\u201d written by Brandon Baker.\u00a0This source is another website article that aims to point out a positive connection between video game playing and engaging education for students.\u00a0The article discusses many ways video games are being used in\u00a0various different\u00a0environments including the\u00a0military,\u00a0fitness, and of course schools themselves (Baker). With such a diverse range of games and genres it is possible for video games to be used in hundreds of different contexts and environments as an educational tool in one way or another.\u00a0Professor Yasmin Kafai certifies that video games have a long extensive history in education and that their modern surge in use is nothing new\u00a0as\u00a0Professor Kafai verifies with the\u00a0course\u00a0she created titled Video Games and the Virtual World which deals extensively with how video games can be used for educational purposes in many different scenarios (Baker).\u00a0As Professor Kafai\u2019s course most likely verifies, video games have had a long history of educational purposes even when it may not seem\u00a0very obvious\u00a0or apparent.\u00a0There are many games that have very specific educational values and themes that were made\u00a0exclusively\u00a0for classroom education purposes rather than for entertainment purposes such as a game titled\u00a0Math Blasters (Baker).\u00a0Although there are some games that are made specifically for educational purposes and not for entertainment purposes, it is still possible and even likely that more entertainment focused video game titles\u00a0are\u00a0capable of having\u00a0educational value whether it is intended or not.\u00a0Recent events, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, have shown that video games and other\u00a0technology based\u00a0methods\u00a0can be extremely effective and sometimes vital to a learning environments benefit\u00a0(Baker). When the world of education suddenly became almost entirely reliant on technology to administer its\u00a0lessons to students it is possible that many educators became at least somewhat aware that video games have a much higher potential of educational use than many would have previously thought.\u00a0In summation, Baker\u2019s article is very aware and expressive of how the world of education is already\u00a0very much connected to video games and that they have a bright future in the educational field now that technology has taken on such a crucial role in the field.\u00a0Another source that deals with this topic is \u201cA New Venue for Video Games: K-12 Classrooms\u201d written by Carolyn Jones.\u00a0This article begins by describing a teacher who struggled to keep his students engaged and interested in the subject matter until he instituted video games\u00a0as a way to\u00a0make his class\u00a0more engaging and fun for the students. He began to use Minecraft: Education Edition as a part of his history class and witnessed as it drastically increased his\u00a0student's\u00a0engagement\u00a0with the course material\u00a0(Jones).\u00a0When students are given a more entertaining way to learn the same material as a more traditional classroom experience can offer, the entertaining option will usually be much more appealing and effective at keeping\u00a0the students interested in the material.\u00a0Other educational games such as Dragon Box focus around other school subjects such as math to provide a wider range of teaching ability across multiple different possible\u00a0forms of presentation (Jones).\u00a0Many games have specialty areas of education just like different teachers are more informed on certain subjects. My last source for this question is \u201cThe Benefits of Gaming in Education:\u00a0the\u00a0Build A World Case\u201d which has no listed\u00a0author.\u00a0The article states that gaming has numerous social and psychological benefits to its players and that these benefits have countless positive effects even in the\u00a0area of education (The Benefits of Gaming). These benefits are often somewhat overlooked but have a very great impact on students and other young people who play video games. As students play video games they\u00a0are idly and subconsciously improving their critical thinking and technical skills due to the quick snap decisions and puzzle solving that many games have included within them (The Benefits of Gaming).\u00a0Video games are not often made\u00a0purposfully\u00a0with the goal of education in\u00a0mind\u00a0but they very often include puzzles and other stimulating challenges that require the player to think critically.\u00a0Overall\u00a0These sources all seem to indicate that there is a strong relationship between video games and the field of education.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWorks Cited\r\n\r\nHorowitz, Kenneth S. \u201cVideo Games and English as a Second Language: The Effect of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games on The Willingness to Communicate and Communicative Anxiety of College Students in Puerto Rico.\u201d\u00a0American Journal of Play<\/em>, vol. 11, no. 3, Jan. 2019, pp. 379\u2013410.\u00a0EBSCOhost<\/em>, search.ebscohost.com\/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1220304&site=eds-live&scope=site.\r\n\r\nLuu, Sylvia, and Anupama Narayan. \u201cGames at Work: Examining a Model of Team Effectiveness in an Interdependent Gaming Task.\u201d\u00a0Computers in Human Behavior<\/em>, vol. 77, Dec. 2017, pp. 110\u2013120.\u00a0EBSCOhost<\/em>,\u00a0doi:10.1016\/j.chb.2017.08.025.\r\n\r\nBarr, Matthew. \u201cVideo Games Can Develop Graduate Skills in Higher Education Students: A Randomized Trial.\u201d\u00a0Online Submission<\/em>, vol. 113, Jan. 2017, pp. 86\u201397.\u00a0EBSCOhost<\/em>, search.ebscohost.com\/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED608315&site=eds-live&scope=site.\r\n\r\nRoach, Alex, and\u00a0Yeski\u00a0Utami. \"Using video game to enhance English communication skills.\"\u00a0Proceedings of ISELT FBS Universitas Negeri Padang<\/em>\u00a05 (2017): 200-204.\r\n\r\nBodnar, Cheryl A., and Renee M. Clark. \"Can game-based learning enhance engineering communication\u00a0skills?.\"\u00a0IEEE transactions on professional communication<\/em>\u00a060.1 (2017): 24-41.\r\n\r\nSquire, Kurt. \"Video games in education.\"\u00a0Int. J. Intell. Games & Simulation<\/em>\u00a02.1 (2003): 49-62.\r\n\r\nBaker, Brandon, \u201cGaming as a Teaching Tool.\u201d\u00a0Penn Today<\/em>, 6 May 2020, penntoday.upenn.edu\/news\/gaming-teaching-tool.\r\n\r\nJones, Carolyn. \u201cA New Venue for Video Games: K-12\u00a0Classrooms\u00a0 .\u201d\u00a0EdSource<\/em>,\u00a0EdSource, 7 May 2018, edsource.org\/2018\/a-new-venue-for-video-games-k-12-classrooms\/597100.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Benefits of Gaming in Education:\u00a0the\u00a0Build A World Case.\u201d\u00a0Acer for Education<\/em>, 27 Jan. 2017, acerforeducation.acer.com\/education-trends\/gamification\/the-benefits-of-gaming-in-education-the-build-a-world-case\/.\r\n\r\nElassar, Alaa. \u201cVideo Games Help Children Improve Literacy, Communication and Mental Well-Being, Survey Finds.\u201d\u00a0CNN<\/em>, Cable News Network, 5 Sept. 2020, www.cnn.com\/2020\/09\/05\/health\/video-games-literacy-creativity-children-trnd\/index.html.\r\n\r\nHulick, Kathryn. \u201cVideo Games Level\u00a0up\u00a0Life Skills.\u201d\u00a0Science News for Students<\/em>, 3 Dec. 2019, www.sciencenewsforstudents.org\/article\/video-games-level-life-skills.\r\n\r\nFishman, Andrew. \u201cVideo Games Are Social Spaces: How Video Games Help People Connect.\u201d\u00a0Video Games Are Social Spaces: How Video Games Help People Connect |\u00a0ResponseCenter<\/em>, www.jcfs.org\/response\/blog\/video-games-are-social-spaces-how-video-games-help-people-connect.","rendered":"

April 2021<\/h3>\n

The relationship between education and new technologies, more specifically video games,\u00a0has\u00a0long been debated about and judged without a full understanding of the actual potential of the combination of the two.\u00a0New methods such as using video games as an education tool are almost always overlooked by educators even though they may\u00a0be missing out on a niche form of education that can keep students far more engaged in the subject they are learning while also encouraging them to continue learning because they are also having fun.\u00a0It is also often overlooked that playing video games can potentially in some way increase the\u00a0players’\u00a0skills in communication through the usage and improvement of communication\u00a0required in some games.\u00a0I share the belief that video games have great potential to be used as a tool for education if more educators would give them a shot and test them out.\u00a0I also believe that video games\u00a0have very high potential to improve the communication skills of those who play them.\u00a0There are also many researchers and educators who share these beliefs and would like to see the use of video games as an education tool more\u00a0widespread in the future. Many of these researchers and educators that believe in the use of video games as an education tool are of this opinion because they have tested this on students and found results that sway them to see the potential of this form of teaching. Though obviously video games could never become a primary education tool or mainstream form of communication, I think that video games could be\u00a0utilized well as a form of education and that they could be used by many\u00a0as a way to\u00a0improve their communication skills.<\/p>\n

Personally, I think video games have\u00a0a good positive effect on the communication skills of those who play them.\u00a0I have been playing video games for a large portion of my life and I think the form of communication within some of the more competitive games can\u00a0have an effect on\u00a0my communication skills. I think they do this by\u00a0forcing the player to communicate in the typical form of the game which\u00a0then\u00a0have an effect on\u00a0real world communication skills.\u00a0In my experience,\u00a0this\u00a0increase in communication\u00a0skill\u00a0comes from the specific form of communication that happens in competitive video\u00a0games.\u00a0This includes games such as one of my personal favorites, Call of Duty Warzone.\u00a0In order to communicate effectively, the players must communicate through quick and effective\u00a0bursts of information.\u00a0In Warzone, my teammates and I must communicate quickly to tell each other important information such as the location\u00a0of enemies, or where to find valuable resources such as weapons, ammunition and armor.\u00a0I can do this by either talking to\u00a0the\u00a0teammates through a microphone, or using a system called pinging. Pinging is an\u00a0in game\u00a0system where you look at an item or location you want to show to your teammates, then hit a button to place a ping there that is displayed to the rest of your team.\u00a0The most effective way to communicate in Warzone is a combination of both\u00a0pinging\u00a0and rapid verbal communication. This way a player can verbally tell their teammates exactly what they are talking about while simultaneously pinging it to show their teammates visually.\u00a0With the visual indicator on the screen from the ping, and the verbal description from teammates, it should be\u00a0the most\u00a0efficient\u00a0way to tell a\u00a0teammates\u00a0something quickly.\u00a0While some other games also have a pinging system, most force the players to be most reliant on communicating verbally with quick and information packed\u00a0sentences.\u00a0This is because while playing these games, the players do not have time to communicate with each other\u00a0in long detailed\u00a0sentences. They need to cut down the time it takes to relay information to teammates or often it will be too late for that information to be important anymore.\u00a0In the time I have played video games I\u00a0find\u00a0most of this to be accurate and I believe it has had at least some effect on my communication skills in high stress situations. I also have personal\u00a0experience with the use of video games education.\u00a0When I was in elementary\u00a0school,\u00a0I frequently used a computer game to help me practice my speed of completing math equations. Even though I was learning the same thing that the teacher was teaching at school, I was much more engaged and interested because\u00a0a\u00a0game\u00a0was more fun that simply doing equations\u00a0on a sheet of paper.\u00a0I think\u00a0that this kind of education can be used much more often to keep students engaged\u00a0with\u00a0the subject they are learning.\u00a0Overall, I have a good connection to this subject and feel confident in the positive relationship between video games and education as well as communication\u00a0skills.<\/p>\n

First, I will explore\u00a0the research\u00a0on the topic of the relationship between playing video games and communication skills. A\u00a0question that I think is important to answer about this topic is how does video game communication effect real world communication skills.\u00a0Many researchers have studied this relationship to examine video\u00a0games\u00a0effects on communication. One such researcher is Kenneth Horowitz\u00a0in his article \u201cVideo Games and English as a Second Language: The Effect of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games on The Willingness to Communicate and Communicative Anxiety of College Students in Puerto Rico\u201d. In this article Horowitz\u00a0studies a group of students from Puerto Rico who are attempting to learn English while using video games as one of their forms of\u00a0learning. As they play these games it works on their English communication\u00a0skills\u00a0furthering their knowledge of the language.\u00a0Horowitz regards new technology and the internet\u00a0as a whole as\u00a0a fascinating new potential form of education and more specifically a form of improving\u00a0the communication\u00a0skills in those who are learning\u00a0a new language\u00a0(Horowitz 379).\u00a0Because this study revolves around students who are learning\u00a0English\u00a0rather than improving on the English\u00a0skills\u00a0they\u00a0already\u00a0have it is a slightly different situation than the research question asks but still\u00a0mostly related enough to be relevant.\u00a0The research was gathered through two questionaries given through the internet to the research participants\u00a0further relating the connection to the internet and technology to education\u00a0(Horowitz 391).\u00a0This means there was a variety of ways for the participants of the study to express the\u00a0affect\u00a0the study had on them to diversify the results.\u00a0While the participants played a wide variety of video game titles and\u00a0genres, the results and levels of communication\u00a0between the players did not change but stayed at a similar level relative to each other (Horowitz 398).\u00a0While the messages players communicate to each other in these different games titles and genres may be different it still requires the same kind of communicative skill to get the message across to teammates effectively.\u00a0Overall, the relationship between the\u00a0time of\u00a0video games played and the\u00a0skill in communication is a positive correlation (Horowitz 398).\u00a0When applied to the research question about Video Games correlation to real world communication skills, Horowitz\u2019s research would seem to\u00a0suggest that Video games do in fact have a positive\u00a0effect\u00a0on a\u00a0person’s\u00a0real life communication skills in a significant way.\u00a0Another article that deals with this research question is \u201cGames at Work: Examining a Model of Team Effectiveness in an Interdependent Gaming Task\u201d by\u00a0Sylvia Luu and Anupama Narayan.\u00a0This article is another one that deals with how video games and gamification can help people work better as a team in other aspects of life other than video games.\u00a0The term gamification is used frequently throughout the\u00a0article,\u00a0and I think this term is a great term to relate to this essay and the research questions within\u00a0it as a whole.\u00a0As stated in the article, gamification could be described as a way of applying skills and aspects of video game behavior into real life situations and circumstances\u00a0as a way to\u00a0more efficiently\u00a0handle them when the need arises (Luu and Narayan 110).\u00a0The gamification of everyday tasks or especially tasks that have to do with communication and education relates directly to the research question of video games\u00a0having an effect on\u00a0real world communication skills.\u00a0In this article\u2019s\u00a0experiment a wide range of students volunteered to take part by\u00a0working together in a video game designed to specifically bring out the teamwork and communication skills of those who played it (Luu and Narayan 114).\u00a0In contrast to Horowitz\u2019s study, this experiment uses its own game in contrast with Horowitz allowing the participants in the study to play whatever game they chose by\u00a0themselves.\u00a0This provides a different point of view and wider range of research data to support this main concept of improvement in communication\u00a0skill.\u00a0In the end of the\u00a0study,\u00a0it was shown that more communication between the players in the game lead to better performance overall\u00a0and satisfaction between teammates (Luu and Narayan 116).\u00a0When the players who participated in the study communicated more it\u00a0led\u00a0to a higher rate of success and level of approving between teammates which\u00a0could be translated to communication in real life scenarios and demonstrates how the communication in video games is not all that different from communication in real life.\u00a0Yet another article that\u00a0deals with the ways video games\u00a0have an effect on\u00a0a\u00a0person’s\u00a0communication skills is \u201cUsing video game to enhance English communication skills\u201d by\u00a0Alex Roach and\u00a0Yeski\u00a0Utami.\u00a0Once\u00a0again,\u00a0this article similarly dives into the gamification of education and communication and\u00a0how video games can\u00a0incentivize\u00a0and reward\u00a0the improvement of communication skills.\u00a0The article goes over several types of games that can benefit from good communication skills including co-operative\u00a0games\u00a0which are directly related to the players working together\u00a0and communicating\u00a0as well as they can\u00a0in order to accomplish\u00a0their tasks\u00a0effectively (Roach and\u00a0Utami\u00a0202). Multiple different genres and types of video games\u00a0have varying degrees of connection to communication and how it can be improved.\u00a0The research done in this article was based on two different games played\u00a0by several groups of students\u00a0in order to diversify and expand the range of results possible to be shown in the data of the experiment\u00a0(Roach and\u00a0Utami\u00a0203).\u00a0With\u00a0multiple different games to play it becomes easier to show and more apparent that the results of one game are not an outlier to the hypothesis.\u00a0In the results of the experiment, it is believed that the communication between players had a very positive effect on the\u00a0success in playing the games and that good communication was very important and incentivized for a good performance\u00a0(Roach and\u00a0Utami\u00a0204).\u00a0When the students in the experiment communicated\u00a0better, they performed better in the\u00a0experiment which shows the strong connection between playing video games and communication skills.\u00a0Another, more specific article on this topic is \u201cCan game-based learning enhance engineering communication skills?\u201d by\u00a0Cheyrl Bondar and Renee Clark.\u00a0Obviously,\u00a0this article is of a similar\u00a0topic\u00a0as\u00a0the last few but is more specifically relegated to the topic of engineering students using video games in a similar way as the others.\u00a0This article is based on a\u00a0study on several hundred engineering students\u00a0who were asked to write and deliver a presentation on a subject while first\u00a0using video games\u00a0as a way to\u00a0see how the effect the skill in communication\u00a0among these engineering students (Bondar and Clark 25-26).\u00a0Though the final presentation these students are composing is not about video games or communication skills, the way\u00a0video games are implemented into the study still creates an effective situation for the research to show how video games can\u00a0affect\u00a0communication skills in these students.\u00a0The way the video games were used in this study was\u00a0the students developed their own games specifically designed around\u00a0different types of communication such as verbal, nonverbal and written communication. These games were meant to test each\u00a0student in\u00a0how well they can\u00a0properly\u00a0use these different types of communication to complete their assigned final presentations (Bondar and Clark 35).\u00a0As the students play these several different games with varying\u00a0objectives,\u00a0they are also working together\u00a0closely\u00a0much like how they will need to for their presentations at the end of the year.\u00a0In the\u00a0final results\u00a0of this study, it was discovered that the positive\u00a0correlation in communication skills was only found in the level of out loud verbal communication\u00a0skills\u00a0(Bondar and Clark 39). This finding shows how playing video games improves the communication each\u00a0of the\u00a0players\u00a0have\u00a0with\u00a0and between each\u00a0other. It seems to show that as the players proceed through the games,\u00a0they mainly communicate out loud with each other even when playing the games designed around other forms of communication therefor having a much greater\u00a0effect\u00a0on\u00a0their verbal communication skills rather than non-verbal communication skills.\u00a0Overall, this article and its research show that even when working towards an unrelated goal, video game players who are effectively communicating with each other\u00a0will see a great improvement in their level of skill in that same kind of verbal communication.\u00a0My second to last piece of writing on this\u00a0particular research\u00a0question is a CNN article\u00a0titled \u201cVideo Games Help Children Improve Literacy, Communication and Mental Well-Being, Survey Finds\u201d by\u00a0Alaa\u00a0Elassar.\u00a0This article and its message\u00a0are\u00a0based on a survey administered to several thousand teenagers in a small range of different ages on how they believe\u00a0playing\u00a0video games\u00a0effects\u00a0their lives. They are asked about how they think playing video games\u00a0has an effect on\u00a0multiple different aspects including their\u00a0skill in reading\u00a0as well as their writing ability\u00a0(Elassar). Many\u00a0people\u00a0including\u00a0those in the age range of this\u00a0survey\u00a0know that playing video games and reading and writing skills are much more closely related than most would think. These teenagers who participated in the survey\u00a0also report that the video games they play are a major topic of discussion between them and their friends when they talk (Elassar). While this\u00a0particular finding\u00a0may not show direct increase in communication skill related to video games, it does show that playing video games can\u00a0increase the amount of communicating a person does throughout their day both while playing and when they are not.\u00a0Many of these teens think playing their video games\u00a0are\u00a0a fun and entertaining way for them to build connections and\u00a0friendships\u00a0both with people they know in\u00a0real\u00a0life and with new people they meet online through the games (Elassar).\u00a0This shows that playing video games creates and\u00a0strengthens\u00a0connections between those who play them together.\u00a0In a somewhat unrelated note, the participants of the survey\u00a0also report that playing video games helps reduce their stress and other negative feelings (Elassar).\u00a0Overall, the playing of video games has a positive effect on most children who play them both in their ability to communicate and on their mental\u00a0well being.\u00a0Finally, I have one more online article\u00a0titled \u201cVideo Games Level\u00a0up\u00a0Life Skills\u201d by Kathryn Hulick.\u00a0This article is a simple online piece of writing that conveys the message of\u00a0how video games can build their valuable life skills such as communication and improvisation\u00a0or resourcefulness (Hulick). As players play video\u00a0games,\u00a0they\u00a0work on these skills by stimulating their minds in a casual and entertaining way. The article references\u00a0a study conducted in Scotland about\u00a0students who played video\u00a0games during their school week to see if it had any effect on their school performance\u00a0(Hulick).\u00a0In comparison to the control group that played no video games during the study\u00a0did not show as big of an improvement\u00a0in the traits they were asked to report on, resourcefulness, adaptability and communication skills, as the group\u00a0of students who did play video games consistently\u00a0throughout the two months the study was conducted over\u00a0(Hulick).\u00a0All of\u00a0these articles display a very strong connection between\u00a0communication skills and the amount of video games the players play.<\/p>\n

The second part of this essay will be focused\u00a0around\u00a0a different connection to video games.\u00a0The research question for this portion is\u00a0can video games be used as an effective education tool.\u00a0The first source I would like to use for this topic is\u00a0\u201cVideo Games Can Develop Graduate Skills in Higher Education Students: A Randomized Trial\u201d by Matthew Barr.\u00a0This\u00a0article is based on a trail to\u00a0show how video games can be used as an education tool.\u00a0The study is about\u00a0a group of subjects who were asked to play video games and report how they were\u00a0affected\u00a0in a cognitive\u00a0and social context (Barr 86).\u00a0The participants play a wide variety of games that have the potential to have educational value to explore many different\u00a0methods of teaching from a video game.\u00a0By the end of the research, it was shown that the students involved in the study did show good results for a test administered by the researchers possibly indicating a link between video games and effective communication skills (Barr\u00a090). This shows what my research question aims to ask that\u00a0video games while not a main source of education can be used as a tool for educating in some instances where it applies and for specific skills. The next\u00a0source for this research question is titled quite simply \u201cGaming as a Teaching Tool\u201d written by Brandon Baker.\u00a0This source is another website article that aims to point out a positive connection between video game playing and engaging education for students.\u00a0The article discusses many ways video games are being used in\u00a0various different\u00a0environments including the\u00a0military,\u00a0fitness, and of course schools themselves (Baker). With such a diverse range of games and genres it is possible for video games to be used in hundreds of different contexts and environments as an educational tool in one way or another.\u00a0Professor Yasmin Kafai certifies that video games have a long extensive history in education and that their modern surge in use is nothing new\u00a0as\u00a0Professor Kafai verifies with the\u00a0course\u00a0she created titled Video Games and the Virtual World which deals extensively with how video games can be used for educational purposes in many different scenarios (Baker).\u00a0As Professor Kafai\u2019s course most likely verifies, video games have had a long history of educational purposes even when it may not seem\u00a0very obvious\u00a0or apparent.\u00a0There are many games that have very specific educational values and themes that were made\u00a0exclusively\u00a0for classroom education purposes rather than for entertainment purposes such as a game titled\u00a0Math Blasters (Baker).\u00a0Although there are some games that are made specifically for educational purposes and not for entertainment purposes, it is still possible and even likely that more entertainment focused video game titles\u00a0are\u00a0capable of having\u00a0educational value whether it is intended or not.\u00a0Recent events, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, have shown that video games and other\u00a0technology based\u00a0methods\u00a0can be extremely effective and sometimes vital to a learning environments benefit\u00a0(Baker). When the world of education suddenly became almost entirely reliant on technology to administer its\u00a0lessons to students it is possible that many educators became at least somewhat aware that video games have a much higher potential of educational use than many would have previously thought.\u00a0In summation, Baker\u2019s article is very aware and expressive of how the world of education is already\u00a0very much connected to video games and that they have a bright future in the educational field now that technology has taken on such a crucial role in the field.\u00a0Another source that deals with this topic is \u201cA New Venue for Video Games: K-12 Classrooms\u201d written by Carolyn Jones.\u00a0This article begins by describing a teacher who struggled to keep his students engaged and interested in the subject matter until he instituted video games\u00a0as a way to\u00a0make his class\u00a0more engaging and fun for the students. He began to use Minecraft: Education Edition as a part of his history class and witnessed as it drastically increased his\u00a0student’s\u00a0engagement\u00a0with the course material\u00a0(Jones).\u00a0When students are given a more entertaining way to learn the same material as a more traditional classroom experience can offer, the entertaining option will usually be much more appealing and effective at keeping\u00a0the students interested in the material.\u00a0Other educational games such as Dragon Box focus around other school subjects such as math to provide a wider range of teaching ability across multiple different possible\u00a0forms of presentation (Jones).\u00a0Many games have specialty areas of education just like different teachers are more informed on certain subjects. My last source for this question is \u201cThe Benefits of Gaming in Education:\u00a0the\u00a0Build A World Case\u201d which has no listed\u00a0author.\u00a0The article states that gaming has numerous social and psychological benefits to its players and that these benefits have countless positive effects even in the\u00a0area of education (The Benefits of Gaming). These benefits are often somewhat overlooked but have a very great impact on students and other young people who play video games. As students play video games they\u00a0are idly and subconsciously improving their critical thinking and technical skills due to the quick snap decisions and puzzle solving that many games have included within them (The Benefits of Gaming).\u00a0Video games are not often made\u00a0purposfully\u00a0with the goal of education in\u00a0mind\u00a0but they very often include puzzles and other stimulating challenges that require the player to think critically.\u00a0Overall\u00a0These sources all seem to indicate that there is a strong relationship between video games and the field of education.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Horowitz, Kenneth S. \u201cVideo Games and English as a Second Language: The Effect of Massive Multiplayer Online Video Games on The Willingness to Communicate and Communicative Anxiety of College Students in Puerto Rico.\u201d\u00a0American Journal of Play<\/em>, vol. 11, no. 3, Jan. 2019, pp. 379\u2013410.\u00a0EBSCOhost<\/em>, search.ebscohost.com\/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1220304&site=eds-live&scope=site.<\/p>\n

Luu, Sylvia, and Anupama Narayan. \u201cGames at Work: Examining a Model of Team Effectiveness in an Interdependent Gaming Task.\u201d\u00a0Computers in Human Behavior<\/em>, vol. 77, Dec. 2017, pp. 110\u2013120.\u00a0EBSCOhost<\/em>,\u00a0doi:10.1016\/j.chb.2017.08.025.<\/p>\n

Barr, Matthew. \u201cVideo Games Can Develop Graduate Skills in Higher Education Students: A Randomized Trial.\u201d\u00a0Online Submission<\/em>, vol. 113, Jan. 2017, pp. 86\u201397.\u00a0EBSCOhost<\/em>, search.ebscohost.com\/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED608315&site=eds-live&scope=site.<\/p>\n

Roach, Alex, and\u00a0Yeski\u00a0Utami. “Using video game to enhance English communication skills.”\u00a0Proceedings of ISELT FBS Universitas Negeri Padang<\/em>\u00a05 (2017): 200-204.<\/p>\n

Bodnar, Cheryl A., and Renee M. Clark. “Can game-based learning enhance engineering communication\u00a0skills?.”\u00a0IEEE transactions on professional communication<\/em>\u00a060.1 (2017): 24-41.<\/p>\n

Squire, Kurt. “Video games in education.”\u00a0Int. J. Intell. Games & Simulation<\/em>\u00a02.1 (2003): 49-62.<\/p>\n

Baker, Brandon, \u201cGaming as a Teaching Tool.\u201d\u00a0Penn Today<\/em>, 6 May 2020, penntoday.upenn.edu\/news\/gaming-teaching-tool.<\/p>\n

Jones, Carolyn. \u201cA New Venue for Video Games: K-12\u00a0Classrooms\u00a0 .\u201d\u00a0EdSource<\/em>,\u00a0EdSource, 7 May 2018, edsource.org\/2018\/a-new-venue-for-video-games-k-12-classrooms\/597100.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Benefits of Gaming in Education:\u00a0the\u00a0Build A World Case.\u201d\u00a0Acer for Education<\/em>, 27 Jan. 2017, acerforeducation.acer.com\/education-trends\/gamification\/the-benefits-of-gaming-in-education-the-build-a-world-case\/.<\/p>\n

Elassar, Alaa. \u201cVideo Games Help Children Improve Literacy, Communication and Mental Well-Being, Survey Finds.\u201d\u00a0CNN<\/em>, Cable News Network, 5 Sept. 2020, www.cnn.com\/2020\/09\/05\/health\/video-games-literacy-creativity-children-trnd\/index.html.<\/p>\n

Hulick, Kathryn. \u201cVideo Games Level\u00a0up\u00a0Life Skills.\u201d\u00a0Science News for Students<\/em>, 3 Dec. 2019, www.sciencenewsforstudents.org\/article\/video-games-level-life-skills.<\/p>\n

Fishman, Andrew. \u201cVideo Games Are Social Spaces: How Video Games Help People Connect.\u201d\u00a0Video Games Are Social Spaces: How Video Games Help People Connect |\u00a0ResponseCenter<\/em>, www.jcfs.org\/response\/blog\/video-games-are-social-spaces-how-video-games-help-people-connect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"menu_order":18,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["anonenglish102"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[68],"license":[],"class_list":["post-211","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-anonenglish102"],"part":158,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/211\/revisions\/217"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/158"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/211\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}