A Uruguayan study found that video games are more effective for teaching history than reading texts.
This research - carried out by Ingenious (a developer dedicated to innovation in technology) - aimed to quantify the impact that a video game made specifically for education can have on learning. The initiative was supported by the National Telecommunications Directorate and the National Agency for Research and Innovation.
To ratify this hypothesis, they studied 32 fifth and sixth graders from the Elbio Fernández School, who were subjected to three different dynamics.
One group was subjected to the so-called "control" dynamic. They only had to answer a questionnaire of world history questions with the knowledge they had.
The second group was subjected to the "text impact" dynamic. They read a text with school content for 15 minutes and then answered the same questionnaire as the first group.
The third was subjected to the dynamic "impact of the game". In it, the students played a video game that had the same content as the text of the previous dynamic.
The video game, created by Ballpit Monster, is called Chronopedia. The narrative of this entertainment tells that there is a magic book (Chronopedia), which stores all the events of history. Every time something important happens in history, a new page is written in the Chronopedia. There are "bad" characters who try to steal these pages in order to break the timeline, so the user must prevent them from doing so by answering questions.
Gabriel Camargo, one of the authors of the study and a technology entrepreneur, told El País that the video game was inspired by the "trial and error" methodology, which consists of the user trying and, if he or she fails, studying the same subject again until he or she learns it.
According to Camargo - who participated in the study along with a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a video game designer - the technique allows them to associate knowledge with an experience. "That makes them retain it and not forget it," he added.
The expert pointed out that when you read a paper or a textbook, "nothing is challenging you to respond or to show that you are reading carefully". So, he said, "a lot of what you read is skipped by the brain".
Results.
Responses were much better among those who acquired knowledge through video games than those who acquired it through text. "It was almost four times the impact," the study notes.
Over the same period of time, the video game was shown to be "more efficient in terms of attention and memorisation" of content, he adds.
In turn, students were asked which methodology they would prefer to learn. Ninety-seven percent answered that they would rather learn history by playing than by reading.
The research, released two months ago, explains that the "most important" result is that if education systems "focus on creating new forms" of teaching that are "attractive to the public (...) the differences that can be obtained in the educational impact (of students) are of an extremely relevant magnitude".
The authors of the study are in talks with Plan Ceibal to make this video game available on the platform so that it can be used by students (and by teachers who want to apply it in class). Today it is only available in Uruguay for iOS and Android users.
In turn, they talk to Ministries of Education in several Latin American countries, who are asked to pay a licence fee to make the game available in their countries.
Source: El País
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