A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis

A growing research literature suggests that regular electronic game play and game-based training programs may confer practically significant benefits to cognitive functioning. Most evidence supporting this idea, the gaming-enhancement hypothesis, has been collected in small-scale studies of universi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Przybylski, Andrew K., Wang, John C.
Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84529
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41863
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-84529
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-845292023-03-04T17:15:30Z A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis Przybylski, Andrew K. Wang, John C. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Cognitive ability Electronic games A growing research literature suggests that regular electronic game play and game-based training programs may confer practically significant benefits to cognitive functioning. Most evidence supporting this idea, the gaming-enhancement hypothesis, has been collected in small-scale studies of university students and older adults. This research investigated the hypothesis in a general way with a large sample of 1,847 school-aged children. Our aim was to examine the relations between young people’s gaming experiences and an objective test of reasoning performance. Using a Bayesian hypothesis testing approach, evidence for the gaming-enhancement and null hypotheses were compared. Results provided no substantive evidence supporting the idea that having preference for or regularly playing commercially available games was positively associated with reasoning ability. Evidence ranged from equivocal to very strong in support for the null hypothesis over what was predicted. The discussion focuses on the value of Bayesian hypothesis testing for investigating electronic gaming effects, the importance of open science practices, and pre-registered designs to improve the quality of future work. Published version 2016-12-15T06:04:24Z 2019-12-06T15:46:37Z 2016-12-15T06:04:24Z 2019-12-06T15:46:37Z 2016 Journal Article Przybylski, A. K., & Wang, J. C. (2016). A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis. PeerJ, 4, e2710-. 2167-8359 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84529 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41863 10.7717/peerj.2710 en PeerJ PeerJ © 2016 Przybylski and Wang. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. 14 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Cognitive ability
Electronic games
spellingShingle Cognitive ability
Electronic games
Przybylski, Andrew K.
Wang, John C.
A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
description A growing research literature suggests that regular electronic game play and game-based training programs may confer practically significant benefits to cognitive functioning. Most evidence supporting this idea, the gaming-enhancement hypothesis, has been collected in small-scale studies of university students and older adults. This research investigated the hypothesis in a general way with a large sample of 1,847 school-aged children. Our aim was to examine the relations between young people’s gaming experiences and an objective test of reasoning performance. Using a Bayesian hypothesis testing approach, evidence for the gaming-enhancement and null hypotheses were compared. Results provided no substantive evidence supporting the idea that having preference for or regularly playing commercially available games was positively associated with reasoning ability. Evidence ranged from equivocal to very strong in support for the null hypothesis over what was predicted. The discussion focuses on the value of Bayesian hypothesis testing for investigating electronic gaming effects, the importance of open science practices, and pre-registered designs to improve the quality of future work.
author2 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
author_facet School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Przybylski, Andrew K.
Wang, John C.
format Article
author Przybylski, Andrew K.
Wang, John C.
author_sort Przybylski, Andrew K.
title A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
title_short A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
title_full A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
title_fullStr A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
title_full_unstemmed A large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
title_sort large scale test of the gaming-enhancement hypothesis
publishDate 2016
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84529
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41863
_version_ 1759858062771879936