How Can Gaming Help Education?
If you caught our TEDx talk earlier this year, you’ll know that there is a reinvigorated interest in improving educational outcomes using technology — and the number of Edtech firms grow by the day. With 45% of Conservative MPs being privately educated (compared with 6.5% of the general population), a quality and fair educational system becomes increasingly necessary.
We are big believers in the traditional elements that contribute to a successful e-learning platform like Duolingo: high-quality visuals (in our case animated courses), gamification, automated marking and data. But we think it should go one step further: what if education was a game? We’ve been told for years that gaming is addictive, so why not make our education addictive?
Addiction is defined by the NHS as ‘not having control over doing, taking, or using something to the point where it could be harmful to you.’ [1]Addiction, therefore, is typically associated with harmful outcomes, such as drug abuse. However, the Oxford Dictionary definition of “being addicted” is more simply to become ‘physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance.’
Focusing on the dictionary definition, we’re striving for an educational system where our students were actually dependent on learning more and bettering themselves.
Gaming In The UK: Why Is It So Popular?
Throughout the 21st century, computer games have become increasingly popular across all age groups and genders. In 2017, it was estimated that 20.6million people between the ages of 6–64 regularly play computer games in the UK with a near even split across the genders [9] . The young age from which children are playing games suggests that they are both proficient in the use of games and enjoy them.
Neuroscience has taught us is that there are clear, biological reasons for people enjoying games and they involve four neurotransmitters:
· Dopamine
· Endorphins
· Serotonin
· Oxytocin
Dopamine. The primary reward pathway is the mesolimbic system in the brain, comprised of a variety of different components, it uses dopamine as a signal to control an individual’s response to a stimulus. The primary function of the pathway is to make us want to perform essential behaviours through providing a positive outcome. The two primary areas of the mesolimbic system are the ventral tegmental area, neurones containing dopamine are located here, and the ventral striatum, which houses the receptors for dopaminergic neurones. [2,3] . I’m assuming the average person has no idea what this means.
Put simply, dopamine is triggered in anticipation of a reward (or any other stimulus) and plays a role in associated learning from a new event. Put even more simply, dopamine has a huge part to play in our motivations and our learning. Applied to gaming, new situations where there are clear goals e.g. “missions”/assignments release dopamine in anticipation of a reward. Dopamine is an addictive feeling!
Endorphins. The feel good hormone. They’re produced in response to certain stimuli — stress, fear, pain, gaming. They not only block pain — a reason why morphine is used commonly to treat extreme pain — but they also induce pleasure. They let you know when you’ve been satisfied — good food and good companionship; any fun experience you’ve had has probably released endorphins. This mixture of pleasure and blocking pain is the reason that long-distance runners often get an “extreme high” during their second win. Put simply, overcoming challenges releases endorphins.
Any good game has situations where the player had to use a combination of skill and effort — they had to overcome something and achieve something. Unlike dopamine, endorphins are not addictive but like dopamine it is a positive feeling.
Serotonin. The mood regulator — if you’ve ever heard anything about depression, you’ll have heard claims that the absence of serotonin is a big cause of depression. While this hasn’t been verified, it can be proven that serotonin does make you happy. There are many reasons for this, but among the most relevant are gratification and achievement i.e. being rewarded for doing something good. Most games have countless achievement systems — from game progression to in-game badges. It appears obvious that so many people get sucked into the world of games because they have the ability to be rewarded and feel good.
Oxytocin. The emotional bond. Some people call it the love hormone, some associate it more between mother and child. In any sense, it is strongly associated with the feelings of trust, altruism and relationship building. This is relevant because it basically is the basis for emotional investment in any person, object or activity. Applied to gaming, oxytocin is at its highest when the user is engaged in a strong narrative i.e. a good storyline — no surprise that Grand Theft Auto is one of the highest grossing games of all time. A memorable game, with social interaction is the perfect situation for a good game.
Gaming and Education.
So gaming is fun. Gaming is addictive. That’s nothing new. What does it mean for education?
Previous studies have already shown that using video games in education has multiple benefits for the progression of a student, both academically and socially. Gamification is an increasingly used feature in any Edtech platform worth using, take Duolingo for example.
Furthermore, games can provide immediate feedback to the student and the teacher, for example, if the student progresses to the next level and by increasing their score. This is beneficial because a student’s progress can easily be monitored and both the teacher and student can see the areas for improvement. Games can also be designed in such a way that different skills are utilised by the student, such as memory and problem solving [8](4). These aspects of video games are important for the progression of a student so that they reach their full potential, by helping to ensure that they are motivated and engaged, and also honing skills which will be needed in their academic and working careers, and in all aspects of life also.
However, these are the boring, outdated ways of incorporating gamification into learning. We want to take it a step further. Think bigger: I want you to think of two games in particular, Call of Duty and Football Manager. Now let me explain why.
As mentioned, gamification has previously been used to spice learning up slightly — badges, XP points, etc. But what if A-Level Maths was actually a game? A game with a clear purpose, a clear narrative, and a clear challenge. What if the four neurotransmitters that get released when our students tune into games like Call of Duty and Fortnite were being released when it was time to learn about Binomial Expansion.
Science has told us why these games can so easily become part of our “routine”, so why can’t we apply that logic to education? Our students may actually be engaged in their subject from the moment they start their course to the end of it, for reasons other than simply passing the exam.
I mention Football Manager for the teachers. As mentioned above, a gaming platform with automated marking would give teachers and students alike to easily obtainable information on areas of success and fail at the click of a button. Football Manager, a game, has not only rivalled but also been adopted by Premier League Football scouts for this very reason. Clear, easily obtainable data. That’s how it should be for teachers.
What teachers do with this data is another story, completely dependent on the nature of their classes and their school. But for me, it’s clear that, knowing which students are struggling, in which topics, in what periods, and by how much — at the click of a button — will lead to much more informed decisions. Access to this type of data isn’t new — but would you rather find all of this out at the click of a button or spend the next five minutes filtering through Excel…
Scepticisms:
Now there are certainly well-documented scepticisms surrounding gaming, or gamification, and its effects on education.
Key scepticisms include: the “trivialisation” of learning, by reducing education to simply being a game; the potential distraction from learning objectives if they prioritise winning the game over learning; a reduction in students’ resilience and mental fortitude; and finally, the fact that not all students respond or benefit from gaming features like rewards and leaderboards.
There is merit in these scepticisms and it is a risk that education game-makers must be aware of. However, I would argue that these are symptoms of a game’s design rather than of gaming as a whole. Poorly designed games, whether educational or not, rarely impact the game player as meaningful or engaging and are also seen as “trivial”.
The core features of any successful online course are: increased student engagement, audiovisual learning, spaced repetition, contextualised learning and all of the other features that neuroscience has proven are essential for optimal student learning. Gaming, for the reasons discussed above, is the vehicle that we believe should be chosen to deliver a quality online course.
A Word of Warning:
Whilst computer games have been shown to be an effective tool for teaching and learning, it is important to ensure that whilst they are fun for the student, their impact does not become detrimental. There is evidence that gaming can be addictive, which can have negative effects on the user and society. DSM-V is currently considering whether internet gaming disorder can be considered an addiction due to the negative consequences on the individual’s performance academically or at work, and the withdrawal symptoms which are experienced when they stop playing [6].
A study showed that the chemical changes in the brain that occur from substance addiction are similar to game addiction; this could potentially result in some of the side effects being similar [7] . A study in Turkey highlighted that there were negative effects from excessively playing computer games, such as losing track of time and failing to maintain attention [8] . It is therefore important to minimise the negative side effects, which would be detrimental to learning.
Therefore, it is essential that any educational game is created with a focus on learning, productivity and positive outcomes rather than creating an addictive game that has no focus on the syllabus. With that being said, a course that doesn’t have learning, productivity and positive outcomes as its main objectives has some obvious flaws anyway! As with anything, whether you want to get an A*, become an athlete or become an actress, hard work is essential. But how often is hard work fun? How many of you found it easier to motivate your child to play his PS4 than study his Maths? The science has told us why that is. So let’s use that science for good.
Conclusion:
Two things that I can say with absolute certainty. 1) Gaming has the ability to be highly addictive; 2) Education needs a change for the better. In an ideal world, our education system would be so engaging that learning and succeeding in A-Level Maths was as addictive as learning and succeeding in a game like Call of Duty. At Study Streak, our belief is that if our education system had the same components that the best games had, it would be. That’s what we’re on a mission to prove.
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This article was originally posted at https://www.studystreak.co.uk/gaming-addiction-and-dopamine-how-can-we-use-games-to-make-learning-addictive/
References
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