Video Gaming as a Factor That Affects Academic Performance in Grade Nine

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17

Video Games; Likert Scales; Grades (Scholastic); Attendance; Grade 9; Interpersonal Relationship; Extracurricular Activities; Leisure Time; High School Students; Student Surveys; Gender Differences; Correlation; Questionnaires; Academic Achievement; Time; Student Experience; Foreign Countries

In an attempt to investigate concerns expressed by high school counselors, the researchers developed a quantitative Likert-scale survey to assess the relationship between recreational video gaming and academic performance (defined as school attendance and final grades) in grade 9. Questions about video gaming appeared with other questions about social relations, extra-curricular activities, and leisure-time activities. Complete data sets resulted for 82 of the 96 grade nine students in three mid-western Canadian high schools who volunteered for the study with their parents' permission. The students answered the survey questions in their school libraries during release time from their English Language Arts classes. This article reports gender-separated correlations between video gaming and academic performance, based on the students' questionnaire responses, attendance records, and the arithmetic means of of their final marks in English, mathematics, science, and social studies. Pearson product-moment correlations were determined for linear data and Spearman rho correlations were determined for nonlinear data--both with calculations of two-tailed probabilty of error. In this report, the results are collated into 8 overall categories created by correlating 42 pairs of variables related to the following factors: attendance, final marks, time spent playing video games, positive and negative school experiences, and positive and negative video game experiences. In consideration of their findings, the researchers recommend that school professionals advise parents and students of the potentially harmful effects of playing video games. The article contains 8 tables with two sections each (for male and female participants), and 47 cited entries in the list of references.

As Provided

47

2018

ED583492