Games for girls

I'm a big advocate of student publications. Many have some great ideas to share, and we encourage student blogging very strongly in Plymouth. There is nothing to stop students going farther and publishing their work in mainstream journals - if their work is good enough it should be shared widely. It's also very motivating for them. Some of my previous students have published in journals in the past few years. Check out this little gem from Dan Kennedy on the VLE/PLE debate. I'm therefore very pleased that we have another success. A 3rd year research assignment by one of my students Lucy Kitching (which I subsequently collaborated on and helped her re-write for publication) has appeared in the current issue of the prestigious and highly accessed online open access journal European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Congratulations Lucy! Here is the title and abstract:

Playing Games: Do Game Consoles have a Positive Impact on Girls’ Learning Outcomes and Motivation?

Games based learning is currently a hotly debated topic in education and is a fertile field of study (Holmes, 2011; Abrams, 2009). Many schools are exploring ways in which games can be embedded into the curriculum, to enhance learning through deeper engagement and higher levels of motivation (Miller and Robertson, 2010). This paper explores the use of game consoles to support learning for young students (ages 8-11) and evaluates their recent success in primary education. Over time game consoles and video games have been portrayed as a male oriented technology. This research investigated the current use of game consoles in learning and how it might positively affect a child’s learning and motivation, but focused solely on female students’ experiences. In the study we investigated the research question: ‘Do game consoles have a positive impact on girls’ learning and motivation?’ A semi-structured questionnaire was distributed to girls in Key Stage 2 (n=49) across three schools that have already incorporated game consoles into their curriculum. The study found that game consoles and video games can have a positive impact on girls’ learning and motivation and are key themes that have been raised by teachers. However, due to several limitations in this research some issues were not fully addressed, and we identify some future areas for research.

More student led research projects are in the pipeline for publication in the coming months. Read the complete article at this link.

Related Links
What is it about games?
The games we play

Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy


Games for girls by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.