Effect of Digital Games on Children's Cognitive Achievement

Technologies’ rapid advance in developing digital media has been extensively applied in contemporary play materials to enrich children’s play, such as electronic or computerized toys, electronic story books, television, personal computers, and game consoles. Recently, studies about digital games in these areas have begun to appear. Some educators have a vision that these games have the potential to become powerful motivating digital environments and they study digital games in order to determine how motivational components of popular digital games might be integrated into instructional design. This study investigated whether digital games facilitate children’s cognitive achievement in comparison to traditional computer-assisted instruction. One hundred and fifteen third-graders from a middle/high socio-economic standard school district in Tainan City, Taiwan participated in the study. Results indicate that digital game playing not only improves participants’ fact/recall processes, but also promotes problem-solving skills by recognizing multiple solutions for problems.