Video games: a route to large-scale STEM education?

I have been caught up with changing my major and going back and forth on which degree program at ASU so I have only had time to research articles and read. I am including an article that stood out the most to me this week. 

First, the author claims that video games are useful because it strengthens the student's ability to learn and retain the material. Next, the author claims, which I found shocking that video games help students become more social and engaged with achievement. This achievement is due to the continuous and immediate feedback of the game. A study backs this up called the Atlantis Project.

STEM game tasks usually require the student to be able to form a hypothesis, experimentation and discover the outcomes of chosen actions and can be compared to inquiry-based learning. Also, this will allow students to spend more time on the task to retain the information and learn it better.

Lastly, this eliminates the statistic that many sciences and engineer majors claim that 98% of the faculty they had teaching them taught very poorly, affecting them in a negative way of dropping the major entirely.

Article mentioned and image below are from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23716386_Video_games_A_route_to_large-scale_STEM_education 

Hectic Week and Major Change

Taking mainly degree-focused classes this semester made me realize that I do want to stay in my field but that the general I.T. degree is not for me. My passion is web development, and I decided to pursue that route. I have had to hassle getting in contact with people and making appointments but I have my appointment to officially change my major in 2 weeks. Speaking with Maria and Josh allowed me to ask and get the information I needed before making any decisions. I was thankful for having the opportunity to speak to a student already at ASU in the program I thought I wanted to do and for receiving the insight I expected. As far as research I have collected a few articles but not much progress has been done since I thought I was going to be dropped from TRAIN. I have to keep adding my sources to the rough draft and reading them for key points. I am glad that I will be able to stay in this program until I can. Overall, nothing to report this week other than a quick update. 

Image from: https://unsplash.com/photos/eYpcLDXHVb0 

Research Paper Rough Draft

Action video games that have been in studies have been found to enhance many cognitive skills. Developing an action video game to reveal the importance of bats and their conservation will benefit bats, the environment, and the user playing. Therefore, it the game can be an attempt at saving bats from extinction and will benefit the user’s cognitive skills long-term. Video games enhancing cognitive skills is not a new concept, there have been many studies already done on different skills and different areas of the brain being exercised with certain games. Most studies have been done on users who play action video games. Action video games are known to improve attentional skills, reaction times, the ability to rotate objects more accurately, and make better decisions under pressure. In one study inside the Scientific American by Daphne Bavelier and Shawn Green, psychological tests were done on individuals who were instructed to play action video games. The game in the test consists of items flashing on the screen in intervals, less than a blink of the eye. The individuals who do not play action video games found more difficulty identifying the first item and even more the second item, experiencing the phenomenon of attentional blink. On the other hand, the individuals who were action video gamers caught every item flashed. Brain scans were done and found the differences between gamers and non-gamers. Gamers brain scans found that the cerebral cortex, which regulates attention had more activity. Also, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which aids in sustaining attention, parietal cortex which helps focus on switching back and forth among different items, and the cingulate cortex, which is responsible for monitoring one’s behavior all showed more activity (Bavelier & Green, 2016). Since action video games are very rewarding, they will promote learning by providing a rewarding experience for every obstacle and every answer that is answered correctly. These skills can be useful later on in science and math classes due to the improvement in mental rotation (Bavelier & Green, 2016). 

Image from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26047025

Memory and Attention Effects of Video Games

 Researching this topic has taught me that video games, in general, have about the same effects. There have been many mentions of attention, memory, rotating objects mentally, and faster reaction times. The article that interested me enough to blog about this week has to do with video games' memory and attention effects. A study was done with action video games. It was found that the participants had brain imaging done, finding that their ability to obtain attention resources from their brain was more automatic. They were able to filter out irrelevant information. Another study was done on non-action video games, the participants underwent neuropsychological tests that measured the following: processing, speed, attention, executive control, spatial working memory, and episodic memory. The group results were that the group showed improvement in controlled processing, attention, immediate and delayed recall memory. 

Information retrieved from the following Article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338843044_The_Effects_of_Video_Games_in_Memory_and_Attention 

Image from: https://unsplash.com/photos/BDKid0yJcAk 

Spatial Skills and Video Games

 Spatial skills are amongst the most important skills we have in our brains. It is responsible for motor behavior, track and manipulate objects. They also give individuals the ability to represent, organize, understand and navigate the environment. Once again, there is a theme in all the research articles I have found. Researchers keep wanting to find the difference between genders. In the article by Ian Spence and Jing Feng, they analyzed both genders and found both genders equally improved on their spatial abilities after playing games that are thought to boost spatial skills. An example of these games is Marble Madnedd, where the user guides a marble through many 3-D courses which include enemies and obstacle objects. There were fundamental processes observed by the researchers such as sensory proces, attentional process, visuomotor coordination and speed, mechanisms of learning, top-down control of lower level processing, and many others. There were also factors of motivation, emotion and gender differences. Overall, they found that video games indeed improve spatial skills through these processes. 

Article information and image from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1037/a0019491 

Project Background

 Bats have a bad reputation with the public, and therefore no one looks into them. Although, they play a significant role in ecological systems through many means like bat guano for fertilizer (Sakoui, 2020). Also, bats benefit the ecosystem through seed dispersal and pollination (Kasso, 2013), especially economically by reducing the billions spent on agricultural pesticides (Hoffmaster et al., 2016). Bats are beneficial to the ecological system by consuming numerous insects and reducing the need for chemical pesticide use, benefiting humans (Ducummon, n.d.). Video games are also popular in the culture of today. Although they have adverse effects on some, educational games can have more people engaged in learning material and becoming more knowledgeable. Due to the increased use of technology in present society, individuals should use it to make themselves more intelligent. The importance of bats research is that, ultimately, it has to conclude that their conservation is necessary; if they are at risk of extinction, humans are at risk of disrupting their ecological systems and harming the economy (Lawson, 2020). 

Image from: https://unsplash.com/photos/lfQyS-TnqEg 

Locked articles and mathematic performance

 Researching articles about video games in STEM has been hard because all good articles are locked, and I cannot use my phoenix college account to unlock them. I tried to find a way around them and I still could not find some but I did find articles on the benefits of video games. The one that stood out to me is titled "Computer Games for the Math Achievement of Diverse Students" by Sunha Kim and Mido Chang. This article summarizes a study done on students to test the performance of students, separated by gender, which computer games and those who do not. The male students who played computer games demonstrated higher performance than those who did not play computer games. On the other hand, a difference in the females in the study was not found in their performance. Also, another test was done on English-speaking students and ELL students. The English-speaking students who played daily games showed lower performance in daily math. The ELL students who played daily games, on the contrary, were able to learn English more easily. 

Article and Image below's Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/jeductechsoci.13.3.224. 

Video Games for STEM Learning: How Does it Work?

The article I found most compelling this week has discussed how video games can be used for STEM learning. In the introduction, the author Jade Yang mentions how "a range of health education games have been created to help patients to recover as well as to aid the doctors to perform surgeries," I found this interesting because when I think of video games for STEM learning the thought of medical practice never crossed my mind. Video games are beneficial enough to be used as training for medical practices! Yang also mentions how beneficial video games can be, particularly with technology students; the example she gave was students at Cornell and UC Berkeley Universities. These two universities use robotic tournaments to increase students' enthusiasm for their programming courses, such as introducing programming for engineers CS1112. The last interesting point from my research this week is that video games are already created to help players gain emotional intelligence. The game consists of a village; the characters in this village are cats and dogs who do not get along (very typical). The challenge ultimately is to bring the characters together through listening to each other and managing their emotions. The creators of this game hope to gain from the player that the player will be taught sympathy. 

Reference (and image below): Yang, J. Video Games for STEM Learning: How Does It Work? Purdue University Calumet. n.d. 

Merging and Research Errors

This week I thought we would be able to make more progress on the batmon game but we ran into an error that is trying to get solved. We are having trouble merging my work with the rest of the team's work. Since that is going on, I dedicated this week to find articles that focus more on games and STEM learning; I found two that caught my attention enough to write my blog post about. The article was about a study done on students and teachers by survey after being questioned about their technology habits. The study found that learning a technology skill was motivating enough for students to learn the material. Providing a familiar and fun learning environment since this day in age most children are familiar with technology received positive responses from the students. The teachers claimed that this was a good way to engage students; they were more involved, enthusiastic, and self-pacing after incorporating technology into their studies. 

Retrieved image from: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/four-diverse-kids-wear-facemasks-sit-1805639617?id=1805639617&irclickid=2axR6VxbexyIUh4UCrRRW3yQUkBVVoQd3WT1VA0&irgwc=1&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Curly%20Eskimo&utm_source=13749&utm_term=photo-search-top&c3ch=Affiliate&c3nid=IR-13749

Blank Scene Testing and Research Articles

This week I found more research articles on how video games benefit cognitive skills, but my focus shifted more towards the game this week. Josh created three empty scenes for us to test and put together to see if we break them when we put them together. We ran into a problem recently and are trying to find a way around that before we risk breaking anything again. As soon as we find a solution, we can progress. My assignment was to add simple text and a color background to a scene. As far as the research articles I have been reading they say similar facts centering around action video games having the most benefits. The most common skills I have been seeing are visual attention and processing speed. I am excited to get our scenes working and find more stuff on the brain. 

The brain-boosting power of video games

 This week I have been focusing on finding research on how video games can improve cognitive skills and function. I found a handful of articles that met my research needs. Still, this particular one stood out, The brain-boosting power of video games by Daphne Bavelier and C. Shawn Green, published in Scientific American. Overall, the article supports the claim that video games improve cognitive skills, specifically action video games. The points that I found very interesting were that individuals who play action video games have a greater ability to focus on visual details, sensitivity to visual contrast and can "mentally rotate objects more accurately," the example to explain this is that if an action video game player was given the task to fit an oddly shaped couch into an overpacked moving van, they could do it easily. Lastly, a study revealed that laparoscopic surgeons who were also action video gamers were able to finish surgeries quickly and efficiently, all while maintaining the necessary precision needed in an operating room. I loved reading this article. I hope I find similar ones with the STEM topic as well.

 Image from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26047025