Sample English-2010 Issue-Analysis Report
Note to reader: This draft is re-printed here with the author's permission. These student drafts are provided for a couple of reasons: first, to give you a taste of the variety of topics and approaches students have taken, and second, to provide instructors with readings that might be used in class discussions and activities. These samples are not perfect and represent final grades from across the grade scale (A through F), so please be forgiving, understanding, and respectful if you find errors or problems.
***
Tyler Thygerson
Prof. Mike Peterson
Eng 2010-02
14 July 2016
How Video Games Are Beneficial
“There won’t be an Earth left to save…” These lines come from one of the well-known video games, Mass Effect, where players throughout the gameplay make choices that literally change the outcome of everything that will happen. Depending on the decisions and choices made, the main character, Shepard, can save races and civilizations, along with destroying others. Also, the ending of the game changes depending on everything that was done beforehand. Believe it or not, these games are evolving to the point that now video games are starting to represent moral behaviors and attitudes, giving players the options of how they are going to respond to certain situations. Because games continue to progress and evolve into more detailed story arcs, this gives players more freedom for everything that they do. This allows for a reflection of a person’s own moral values, beliefs, and perceptions. It gives players the opportunity to be themselves throughout the game.
Video games throughout the decades have evolved from pure and simple entertainment to big, controversial topics of how exactly they affect us and our society, as games continue to take on many different types of genres, stories, and personas that we come to play and experience. Unfortunately, many people believe video games to be bad altogether, and they see them making children and teenagers more violent, that they cause an antisocial disorder, as well as ruining educations as it may be seen to distract from studying. As many of these problems and studies have proven these statements to be somewhat true, many others are forgetting that video games do influence us positively as well. WIth that in mind, video games positively affect behaviors, learning methods, and morals within society throughout the world, due to the virtual worlds behaviors, characteristics, and morals that they portray.
Behaviors are how people act and behave throughout their entire lives, including their pastime, such as playing video games, watching a movie, listening to music, etc. Many people do not realize that behaviors translate from the real-world to the virtual worlds in games, as well as the behaviors depicted in virtual worlds can reflect behaviors that we portray in the real-world. To make this concept easy, no matter how a person acts or behaves in life, that person will most likely act and behave the same while playing video games; however, because video games can give us new perspectives and views to life and challenges, they can alter exactly how we may react or respond to whatever the game demands us to do, as a result. For unfortunate reasons, people see that video games make children and adolescents more violent, because of negative reports and studies.
Yet, there are other studies that have shown different results. Hou, Associate Professor of Science and Technology, published an article which presents a longitudinal case study examining behavior differences between male and female students, prior knowledge, and learning performance with an educational multiplayer online role playing (MMORPG) computer game. It mentions the study examined the behavioral patterns and interactive behaviors of learners and examined behavior differences. It comments the MMORPG combined problem solving, scenarios, and practice tasks and reports the MMORPG was able to facilitate student learning. Hou states: "...an MMORPG that combines scenarios, problem-solving tasks and practice tasks can indeed facilitate students’ learning to a certain degree (approximately 70%) instead of just providing entertainment. The behavioral pattern also indicates that students focus on learning-related behaviors. We also discovered that males and high-prior-knowledge students are more likely to engage in battles, and high-prior-knowledge students also demonstrate more social interactions" (E89).
With this research and study, it proves that behaviors in fact may improve and become better from playing video games. Interesting how that compares to many of the articles that claim video games to only make people, especially teens and children, more violent. It does not deny that players would engage in combat, but the players were more likely to do so with prior knowledge to playing these games; yet, they did it in a strategic manner. Hou also came out with results showing that players who tend to play more and have more knowledge of the game, typically were more social with their peers and the groups with whom they would play their games. Therefore, this study discredits the claim of video games making kids, teens, and adults antisocial. Yes, antisocial disorders may become more apparent and visible through playing video games, but it does not conclude that videogames are the cause of antisocial disorders.
The most interesting result from the study of Hou, was the fact that MMORPG games can facilitate students’ learning, with scenarios, problem-solving tasks, and practice tasks. Video games actually promote learning-related behaviors. They help students to want to learn more, as well as learn to solve different tasks and giving them the practice and experience to do so. These results are wonderful! Surprisingly, these are not the only results that show an increase in learning. Another study that took place in Saudi Arabia show results of how video games improve learning. Alshaiji, a professor who works at King Saud University-Riyadh Saudi Arabia, performed a study with students in Saudi Arabia, primarily in kindergarten-grade level, who undertook learning English. He explored the difference between classes as the study would involve one class teaching in standard method with a teacher using textbooks and teaching orally, while the other class used video games as a daily routine to help teach vocabulary to students, where they would interact with the graphics, sounds, and actions on the video games. The results were surprising. It showed that applying video games to learning a new language gave a greater advantage and provided better retention to those students learning English with video games, compared to the standard method.
Alshaiji reports, “Stud[ies] found that video games use enhances children’s fine motor skills, alphabet recognition, concept learning, numerical recognition, counting skills and pre-language knowledge, cognitive development, and self-esteem or self-concept” (124). Clearly, this is not the first study that has shown results of video games improving the learning of a new language. In fact, many studies credit video games to enhancing the vocabulary that students are learning, and help them to apply life-like scenarios to learn the new languages, along with listening and hearing native-tongues speaking their own language. All of these elements put together help to create a more perfect simulation of the language that students try to learn, and they can see and practice conversation skills that are presented in games themselves.
Alshaiji argues that “the necessity to learn a foreign language has been on the rise due to [a] globalizing world… Using video games in foreign language education is one of the most utilized methods and have been developed by foreign language teachers” (124). Classes integrated with video games have helped Saudi Arabian students to come to understand English and to speak it better between peers and other English-speakers alike. “...When games and education are combined, it can be educative and education environments can be entertaining. The learners who learned with the use of games, gain positive attitudes and can be more motivated while learning” (125). Not only does it make learning a new language easier and more practical, but it makes it fun. There is no greater motivation than to have fun and enjoy learning a new language. It dramatically improves the likelihood of students learning any kind of foreign language to come more naturally and allows for a more fluent or native tongue as they speak the foreign language.
Good video games can teach kids how to learn things on their own quickly and then use those skills to achieve making constant and rapid decisions that affect things they do. They also improve hand-eye coordination, develop creative problem solving skills, exercise control in challenging circumstances, be persistent, pay attention to detail, and think strategically. All of this helps the student to think laterally as well as linearly and logically (Alshaiji 126). Video games are not always bad. They have been proven to help out in learning environments, as well as improving the effectiveness of retaining that which is taught. Video games help to give a consistency that many languages need in order to master their tongue and the form that they speak.
In the pursuit to find out if this method of learning had positive results, I interviewed a man named Javier Fuentes. He is from Guerrero, Mexico, and he is a 22-year old college student. In the interview, the question was asked, “How did you come to learn English and be able to speak it?” Javier responded, “I practice learning English from video games. I play the games for many years as teenager, and I play with the sound in English and the subtitles in English to learn how to spell and say the words in English.”
“How long have you been playing video games in English then?” Javier replied, “I play for over 10 years, and I play online with people around the world, and I speak English with them to continue to practice and learn English.” During the interview, it was apparent that he could understand almost everything that was said to him in English, and he would answer back with a heavy Mexican accent, but in a very understandable English. Javier gives all credit to his knowledge of English to video games. He did mention taking English classes during middle school and high school, but he reassures that playing video games in English is what helped him out the most along with speaking to friends and peers across the world in English.
It’s incredible to think that people like Javier can pick up a video game, put forth a little effort, and, in time, come to learn a new language and actually be able to speak it. All of this he did by his own efforts and his own honest pursuit. Imagine the potential that video games could do for schools to help America learn other languages, such as Spanish, German, French, Chinese, and Japanese. The games not only would entertain students, but also teach them new words, idioms, and thinking processes of the many different languages. The most crucial part is that students can hear native speakers speaking their native language, and they can learn from the native tongue as how to pronounce and say the words and how to interpret them. As a result, the world would be able to become bilingual or polylingual as a whole, creating more unity and better behaviors towards our neighboring countries and languages in the world.
As great as this idea can be to instill video games into education curriculum, many people pose the question, “will it be too distracting for kids to learn?” or “are they just teaching kids that it's okay to sit and play a game all day and slack off?” From a general survey that I created, I gathered some interesting results and responses that focused on video games and how they may possibly be affecting school and education. 18 of the 40 respondents from the survey, felt that video games would not benefit the school systems due to being distracting or the idea of making education not seem important. Yet, the others expressed interest and positivity in the idea. Many of them believed that if the technology and video games were designed in a way to help teach the concepts of subjects —such as math, science, art, etc.— to students, then they saw it being beneficiary. They also felt that it would positively reinforce the school environment to be more fun and promote the students to engage in the learning process.
Other results from the survey showed on average that people thought video games to be somewhat distracting. However, numbers showed that on average they would play roughly an hour and a half a day, study for school two hours a day, and by the end of each semester in school, they would receive an average of a 3.54 GPA. A 3.54 GPA is not the best of the best, but all colleges and universities in the U.S. see that GPA as an honor student. Students can still enter grad schools with those grades. So that leads to the question, do video games really hinder education? Even though many people felt that video games were to be distracting, it appears to be more of an opinion than actual evidence since grades appear to stay within honors standing and people continue to study more than play. So then, could video games potentially be used to enhance those scores? They definitely can, as they have been shown to help Saudi Arabian students to learn English at a more effective and accelerated rate, video games can be applied to any other part of education to enhance and benefit all subject matters.
The biggest concern that was expressed was the thought that video games would distract kids and students to much to stop them from learning. The real problem is not that videogames distract students, but the time-management skills that student has. Learning to manage time is a skill that must be practiced and one must be disciplined to manage time well. One respondent to the survey expressed these thoughts:
“People will misuse games and it will inevitably be branded as the number-one bane of education. Games teach critical thinking, how to handle multiple demands at once, multitask, delegation, teamwork, prioritizing, risk assessment and management, and resource management. They do not teach time management, and that's the biggest downfall. Games can provide a good environment for a much-needed break, [and] can be good for downtime. If used properly, they will promote education. If they are used improperly, they will inhibit education.”
So in other words, time management must be learned to truly excel in school as well as promote for healthy living behaviors. This is not just for video games, but for anything in life. Time can be wasted doing any one single thing, such as sports, reading, watching tv, listening to music, and so on. Unfortunately, video games have become the scapegoat to many of the reasons that kids are lazy, or fail in school, when in reality, it is their time-management skills. With video games being part of the teaching curriculum, teachers can help to manage the time that they use video games, and help kids to understand the concept when they have spent enough time on such task. Maybe this is a solution to the time-management problems, and maybe this is the answer to help kids focus better in school. Video games have tons of potential to teach, give visual aids, and help students to interact with what they are learning. They can help kids and students to truly enjoy school and reinforce the desire to attend school to learn more.
Scott Shamo, a 36-year old video-game enthusiast, shared how he continues to learn new things, even from video games. “I play Civilization on the computer, and it teaches me history of ancient nations and their leaders, and how they were important in the world. Obviously, the game is a game, but it has true historical facts that I learn while playing the game.” Scott continued to share how a lot of games that he plays have some sort of learning element into them, whether they be subtle or pronounce, lots of them have historical meaning and background to them. So even though Scott plays games that focus on entertainment, he continues to learn new problem-solving skills, learning how to use different resources and manage them, as well as learn new historical facts. Now imagine the games that are focused and designed for education and learning, along with entertaining.
Now the biggest issues of video games usually are focused on the behaviors that happen in result of much exposure to any type of game. Many accuse the negative behavior associated with first-person shooters (FPS) of people becoming more aggressive. Because of this genre, many generalize all video games to be like the FPS games, which is wrong. There are many more genres than FPS games, and many other games that focus on other types and forms of entertainment, than just shooting and violence. Even then, any teenager can play a FPS game, and it does not guarantee that he or she will become more violent or aggressive for playing such game. It is just a correlation. In that light, what really is the problem? Behaviors come and exist from morality. So in essence, the problem is not of behaviors, but of moral decisions. Morally, it is wrong to kill someone, yet in warfare depicted in FPS games and real life, it is right to protect one’s country, justice, and liberty. So what defines something to be morally wrong and right? What makes it acceptable and unacceptable to play one game compared to the other? It all comes down to the mechanism of the game and what it demands to finish the goals and achievements required to progress in the game.
Marina Krcmar, Communications professor of Wake Forest University, and Drew Cingel, also from Wake Forest, published a recent study of moral processes and decision making throughout playing video games. Using a think-aloud protocol, participants’ decisions and reasoning were recorded during game play and coded as either strategic or moral. Players’ reasoning was also coded using Moral Foundations Theory. Results indicated an almost equal percentage of strategic and moral reasoning. Video game experience was positively related to the use of moral reasoning, which can be explained by relating reasoning to rational and experiential processing during game play. Previous studies have demonstrated that players do use morality in games, despite the fictional nature of video games (89).
With the knowledge that players do in fact use morality in games, to what degree and level does it affect the game, and how does the game affect the player? It seems that video gameplay itself may influence moral reasoning, especially moral reasoning when it comes to violence (Krcmar 93). Most of these moral reasonings come to play when it is time to make decisions, and the decisions do not always make a reflection of exactly what the person normally would do in given situations. “The decisions made, nearly half used reasoning from the foundation of harm/ care, and over one quarter came from the authority/respect foundation” (99). So lots of these decisions were actually influenced from other beings and events throughout the games, that would lead people to react or decide according to being cared for or harmed virtually. Even though the games are virtual, players’ included their morality and feelings in the game, and they began to react as if what was happening in the game was affecting them personally. However, there would be cases when the players wouldn’t make a moral choice, and instead they would use a strategic choice. Strategic decisions usually have to be made to progress within the game, regardless of virtual moral consequences. The action had to be completed to progress in the game. “The present study, however, indicated that both the fairness/reciprocity and in-group/loyalty foundations were referenced rather frequently as well. Thus, the virtual world of game play encouraged many of the same reasoning processes that individuals are likely to go through in the real-world” (99). These results from the study show that videogames can be a type of simulation to our own real life, and they can partially show how we ourselves would react in certain circumstances and situations throughout our lives. Whether it be strategic or moral.
Other research suggests that “playing video games can result in a wide range of behavioral benefits, including enhancement of task performance, spatial cognition, processing speed, task switching and level of reasoning in decision making” (Liu 2). Many of these studies come to show that it depends on who the player is and how exactly the games will be affecting him or her. There were no significant differences within these studies between the difficulty of two task versions, where players’ ability to concentrate on a given task after gaming, and the extent to which they thought about the task during the game breaks (Liu 7). This shows behavior-wise that players could focus on tasks that they had to do —such as do homework, cook dinner, write a resume, etc.— even with breaks or interruptions of playing video games. This shows that the games did not distract players at extreme levels, as many people would like to believe, especially for antisocial disorders and laziness. “We have found that gaming reduces reliance on the goal-directed decision system in low working memory individuals, suggesting that gaming may interfere with working memory resources needed for goal-directed planning” (Liu 9). If the person (or player) is already lazy or already has an antisocial disorder, than that is due to a different cause, not because of videogames, but it can influence the behavior to become more prominent. Nevertheless, videogames become the scapegoat for being the cause of such problems associated with them, when in reality, something else caused the related-behavior that the person has.
So If results show that video games can make problem-like behavior more apparent, it potentially could do the reverse effect as well. Video games can help establish and strengthen positive behaviors, especially if the game teaches and uses good moral behaviors, strong leader-like characteristics, and good decisions-making processes. Scott Paeth, Associate Professor of Religious Studies who works at DePaul University, also a self-identified Christian ethicist, wrote an article which presents an examination into the intersection between video games and Christian ethics. He points out that video games of the 21st century feature complex interactive storytelling experiences which have significant ethical components engaging the consequences of good and evil actions. Further discussion is offered reflecting on the influence of the ethical decision making process used in video games on real life behaviors and attitudes.
While there have been many concerns risen from first-person shooter games such as Battlefield and Call of Duty, for most players these games rarely rise above the level of a harmless romp, because “so little of the player's self is involved in the game” (Paeth 24). However, open world games such as Mass Effect rely heavily on the deep investment made by the player in his or her character and the character's actions and relationships, so it may be possible to draw moral lessons from the game playing experience. If players have the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences and consider the differences and consequences of the narrative in which they are involved, they may come to distinguish between morally better and worse outcomes (24). This goes to show that simplistic games —simple stories, or just a follow-thru narrative, without any kind of deviation or selection of different choices to change the narrative— over long periods of time have little to no-effect on moral behaviors or rational decision making. However, as the game becomes more complex and begins to shape a narrative according to the players decisions and choices, then the game becomes much more “real” in the sense that players see results of their own consequences, and not because the game forced them to do so in order to progress further in the story.
Games are becoming more and more complex every year, and they will continue to do so for the years to come. “The more deeply a player is encouraged by the game to make the character one's own rather than just being a spectator to the character's story, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish one's decisions as the player from the decisions of the virtual character” (Paeth 24). This promotes that moral choices and consciousness will be more present within these complex games, such as Mass Effect. It also promotes that these types of games can either help or hinder moral behavior in both the virtual world and real-world, as players become more self-involved with the choices that do make.“If virtue is indeed a reflection of that which we repeatedly do, then the cultivation of "virtual virtue" may have a positive effect on my real-world behavior” (24). In other words, if we choose to do the right and make good decisions and choices often and repeatedly, even in the virtual world of games, it can carry a positive effect and nature to our behaviors in our own lives. We can be made morally stronger, and strengthen better behaviors in our lives.
Overall, video games have been seen to be negative for too long. They have been negatively criticized for many problems, and myths have been spread about them that never have been proven true, such as video games kill brain cells. Because of society as a whole, many people in the U.S. and in the world have a negative-biased opinion on video games, when in reality, these people have not even considered to do the research or thinking for themselves to truly find out if video games can be positive or be used for good. Recent evidence and studies have shown time and time again that video games have enhanced schooling and education, by maintaining better retention of what is taught and learned in multiple subjects as well as accelerating the learning process and methods. They have shown to positively reinforce critical thinking, handling multiple demands at once, multitasking, delegation, teamwork, prioritizing, risk assessment and management, and resource management. Recent studies and evidence have shown that negative behaviors come from the individuals themselves or other circumstances, but not from the games itself. Only that video games can fuel or make more apparent the already present negative-related behavior that any person may have. Otherwise, studies have shown that virtues and good morals and behaviors may strengthen in result of repetition from playing positive video games. These moral changes and behaviors heavily depend on the complexity of the game with involving the players own image of behavior within the game, and allowing for personal choices and decisions to come into effect in the game.
All in all, video games are beneficial for society for many of these different reasons. The only thing that is holding us back is ourselves and the false ideas that society has made about video games. It is time to push past this negative-bias that many have come to believe and permit within themselves, and allow the new evidences and truths of these studies to take effect. Let video games be good. Allow them to be good. Give them the opportunity that they deserve to bring greatness into each of our lives, and quit blaming them for every problem that seems to be associated with them. Video games have become a scapegoat because of the negative opinions, yet they are not supported by strong evidences. However, there are strong evidences that video games can be beneficial, especially for schooling and education, and peer and group unification. Let video games be beneficial, and they will transform not only the virtual-worlds, but the real-world to become an even greater one.
Works Cited
Alshaiji, Ohoud Abdullatif. "Video Games Promote Saudi Children's English Vocabulary Retention." Education 136.2 (2015): 123-132. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 June 2016.
Fuentes, Javier. "How Did You Learn English?" Personal interview. 25 May 2014.
Hou, Huei-Tse. "Analyzing The Behavioral Differences Between Students Of Different Genders, Prior Knowledge And Learning Performance With An Educational MMORPG: A Longitudinal Case Study In An Elementary School." British Journal Of Educational Technology 44.3 (2013): E85-E89. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 June 2016.
Krcmar, Marina, and Drew P. Cingel. "Moral Foundations Theory And Moral Reasoning In Video Game Play: Using Real-Life Morality In A Game Context." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 60.1 (2016): 87-103. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 June 2016.
Liu, Shuyan, et al. "Music And Video Gaming During Breaks: Influence On Habitual Versus Goal-Directed Decision Making." Plos ONE 11.3 (2016): 1-12. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 June 2016.
Paeth, Scott R. "Virtual Good And Evil." Christian Century 129.6 (2012): 22-25. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 June 2016.
Shamo, Scott. "Would Videogames Benefit Education?" Personal interview. 6 July 2016.