Web site logical path: [www.psy.gla.ac.uk] [~steve] [this page]

Matt Barr: Education and computer games

This will be a page about a) Matt Barr; b) education, learning, video games
His website. (His blog.)

He has achieved his chief thesis aim of showing significant, objective, and evidenced educational benefits from playing video games.

My own way of summarising this is that the centre of this is a randomised controlled experiment that shows that it is possible to use video games to increase students' scores on certain graduate attributes (adaptability, resourcefulness, and communication skill). This is a rare success in the field at showing that sustained play of some commercial games can lead to achieving valued educational outcomes. (The statistics are impressive: p<0.013 for one measure, and for two others p<0.005 i.e. less than 1 in 200 chance of the effects being accidental; and effect sizes (Cohen's d) in the range 0.95 - 1.15.)

This work has now been published, where you can read his own way of putting it:
Barr, M. (2017) "Video games can develop graduate skills in higher education students: A randomised trial" Computers & Education vol.113 pp.86-97. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2017.05.016 (or via this link). [Presents the quantitative data and the large effect size.]

Barr, M. (2018) "Student attitudes to games-based skills development: Learning from video games in higher education" Computers in Human Behavior vol.80 pp.283-294 doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.030   Another direct link [Presents the qualitative data from the same experiment].

Various collected links