1. Found at CMU library resources
2. Related – general gaming. specific types of games and outcomes
3. Gamers and non gamers critical thinking and relationship of critical thinking disposition to gaming context
4. Same
5. Small limited base group
6. Data from survey
7. yes. 2 tables. 1 to define genre of games. 2nd to show percentages of participants
8. No

Gamers and gaming context: relationships to critical thinking. S Gerber and L Scott

The United States Department of Education has outlined several 21st Century skills that students should attain while attending public school that should transfer over to higher education. One of the focuses of these skills is the skill of critical thinking. Current general belief is that people who participate in a variety of different gaming activities online have higher critical thinking skills compared to their counter parts who only participate in standard lecture type classrooms. The focus of this study was to examine within a small group of participants if that was true.

They based the tables and game genre on J. P. Gee’s research, What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (2003). Outlining ten different types of gaming genres that they would be investigating: adventure, fighter, 1st person shooter, music, platformer, puzzle, racing, role play, simulations, sports, and strategy. Each type was given a brief discription that they would use as a guideline because the guidelines for gaming types fluctuate.

The first area of investigation was the differences between gamers and non-gamers on crital thinking dispostions. They wanted to find out if there was a significant difference. The second area of investigation was to examine the relationship of critial thinking dispositions to gaming context. This included game genre, daily playing time, and connection to gaming community.

A total of 121 individuals replied. 79 gamers and 42 non gamers, to the survey. Gender response was about equal with 46% being male and of that percentage 78% were gamers. This reflects the data from other studies indicating that males within the age range of most college students are most likely to be gamers. 33% played games up to 2 hours daily. Only 19% played more than 4 hours daily.

Based on the results of the first set of survey questions completed by the participants on themselves, there was no significant difference regarding critical thinking dispositions. This result disagrees with current literature. The second set of survey questions resulted in data that supported current research. Those participants playing daily under 2 hours scored higher then those who were playing 4 or more hours per day.

The division between the different types of games were: Role Play 73%, 1st person shooter – 71%, Strategy – 58%, Adventure 56%, Music 53%. The remaining six games were all below 50% participating with sports games ranking last.

Though this research did not support the idea that gamers have higher critical thinking skills it did support other research regarding the relationship between playing games and critical thinking when context knowledge is included in the gaming component.