Research on entertainment games and educational technologies-to be continued

While I was doing some research on video game educational technologies, I came across a study by Stanford School of Medicine. It offers insight on game playing experience from a neural reaction perspective, and further adds weight to gender issues. In the study, researchers reveal the neural processes that happen during game experience. The study notes that video games stimulate reward regions of brain in men more than women, indicating that acquiring territories in video games is more rewarding for men than for women  The more territory they gained, the more activation they have, the more rewarding they feel, the more urge they have to conquer more territory. The better physical and psychological satisfaction explains why males are more attracted by video games than female, and why most computer games that popular among males are territory or aggressive games that involve violence.

Some scholars offer the sociability effect of video games, revealing video game’s surprisingly positive impact on improving players’ social skills. Although I agree with the literature on this point to certain extent, the category of games that are played by audience is also crucial in determining whether the effect is positive or not. For example, console games such as Wii and guitar hero allow multiple players to be physically present while playing, therefore encourage social interaction; however other computer games such as World of Warcraft, one of the most well-received online role-playing game, involve only a controlled amount of real-world interaction—in most circumstances, players assume the roles of characters and perform characters’ physical actions by operating through computer.

Additionally, there are some other literatures indicating that how educational video games improve performance and learning ability. A recent study on human brain suggests that the size of a specific brain region determines the performance of video game. Although not necessarily the only reason, the study indicates that the bigger the size, the better performance the players achieve. Note worthy is that it’s possible to enhance this brain region by training. Thus educational video games can be and should be encouraged to utilize to enlarge human brain region, and thus improve performances during other learning tasks and activities.

It raises a broad question: how parents, schools, game developers, government, legal institutions, and all the relevant parties can collaborate to create a healthy and harmonious gaming environment that brings both entertainment and education. This further makes me ponder maybe a better incentive system should be considered that encourages gaming companies to develop something that’s not only profitable, but also educational.