How and What do Videogames Teach

The pervasiveness of videogames in modern society, especially among children, suggests that it is important to understand how and what these videogames are teaching the individuals who play them. Although playing videogames can produce positive outcomes, such as increased persistence at difficult tasks, there are also potential negative outcomes, such as increased aggression. The General Learning Model illustrates how these positive and negative outcomes are produced, both in the form of irnme-diate short term effects and through cumulative long term effects. In this chapter, we will explore the effects of videogames as explained by the General Learning Model. Some important public policy issues relating to the teaching effects of videogames will also be addressed. The General Learning Model (GLM) is based on both early aggression theories and violent-media research as well as social-cognitive models and developmental approaches to learning. The GLM is general enough to explain many ways in which videogames teach and influence behavior (Buckley & Ander-son, 2006). This model is also useful for its ability to integrate the short term and long term learning effects that videogames can produce. A person's behavior is a product of two types of input variables: personal and situational (see Figure 3.1). Person variables include all of the characteristics of a person as they exist before the learning encounter: personality traits, previous experience, behavioral tendencies, beliefs, attitudes, and mood state. These internal variables tend to be consistent over time and How and What Do Videogames Teach? Situation p-] 1 internal Learning encounter Appraisal, decision, and Figure 3.1. The General Learning Model: simplified view. across situations as a result of people consistently using the same knowledge structures (e.g., scripts, beliefs, and schemata) in shaping their behavior Situational variables are the characteristics of the context in which the individual is currently placed ("situated"). This includes media, objects, settings, and other peoplithat make up the learning environment. Although situational variables can and do vary quite a bit over time, they also show some consistency over time, as individuals are often in the same or similar situations repeatedly. As with learning in general, the ability to learn from videogames is related to many variables, including age, grade level, ability level (this includes learning disabilities and low school performance), income level, and self-esteem (Lieberman, 1998). Some factors that influence learning from videogames are more specific to this form of learning. These variables include individual media-exposure history and the …