Are Educational Video Games Effective?

Submitted by MEoDP1 t3_zzf2x0 in askscience

Also known as Edutainment video games. I played quite of these games back in the day as a child. The old school Jumpstart games come to mind first and foremost.

I credit these video games to a few of my strengths in certain subjects over my schooling experience in my country (Which I feel leaves much to be desired,to keep it short. discussing that would be out of topic here.),but I want to know what the actual research says on how effective these types of games really are for fostering education in kids.

Are you really doing children a big favor by having them play these types of games? I recall them being used during my Computer classes as well. (only there though) Other schools might use them even more frequently.

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IndependentBoof t1_j2fx1t0 wrote

It is too complicated to answer broadly, particularly since "educational video games" can include a wide range of software from something focused on specific learning outcomes (e.g. typing tutors) to games meant primarily to be entertainment but happen to have some historical information (e.g. Oregon Trail).

Generally speaking, the former will usually be more effective than the latter but I'd hesitate to paint with a broad brush. There is a lot of software out there that advertises itself as "educational" but doesn't follow the science of how we learn from multimedia.

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