Impact of Electronic Games on Academic Achievement of Children

RESEARCH ARTICLE

ELECTRONIC GAMES AND THEIR IMPACT ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN

Gunjarika Ranka and Madhu Jain
University of Rajasthan, Jaipur

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to examine the impact of electronic games on personality of male and female school going children. A sample of 300 children (100 non users, 100 low users and 100 heavy users with equal number of boys and girls, 50 in each group ) within the age range of 10-14 years were drawn from reputed co-educational english medium public schools of Chandigarh (UT and capital city of Punjab and Haryana). their annual report cards were observed to see their academic performance. Result revealed that the academic achievement of heavy users (playing 30-40 hours/week or more) is being discarded by over exposure of electronic games although limited playing shown some positive results. The interaction effect of playing electronic games and gender was found to be significant on academic achievement of children.
Key words: electronic games, gender difference, academic achievement.

METHOD

Sample

Sample for this study at initial level comprised of 500 subjects (250 males and 250 females) of 5th to 8th grade, falling in the age group 10-14 years drawn from reputed coeducational English medium public schools of Chandigarh (U.T. and capital city of Punjab and Haryana). Out of the total sample, 300 subjects (150 males and 150 females) were purposively chosen as heavy users (playing 20-40 hours/week or more), low users (playing 10-20 hours/week) and non users (not playing at all) after matching them on the basis of their socio-economic status. There were equal number of boys (N=50) and girls (N=50) in all the three groups.

Measures

Design
3*2 factorial design (type of users: heavy users, low users, and non users; Gender: boys and girls) was used and accordingly six groups were formed. Results were analyzed through multiple ANOVA.

Procedure
With the permission of school authorities the subjects were contacted during the working days in a school setting. They completed the measures in small groups.

RESULTS

Table 1

Mean and S.D. Values of Academic Achievement

|Variables | |Boys |Girls |Total |
|Entire population |Mean |1023.53 |1101.25 |1061.70 |
| |S.D. |232.07 |250.66 |244.14 |
|Non users |Mean |966.22 |1129.74 |1043.35 |
| |S.D. |236.50 |252.93 |257.02 |
|Low users |Mean |1109.32 |1234.78 |1168.05 |
| |S.D. |223.03 |228.79 |235.10 |
|Heavy users |Mean |995.06 |939.24 |967.71 |
| |S.D. |215.42 |170.12 |195.02 |

Table 2

2 * 2 ANOVA for Academic Achievement

|Source of Variation |Sum of Square |D.F. |Mean Square |F |Significance Level |
|Between Users |2130362.12 |2 |1065181.06 |23.61 |0.01 |
|(A1,A2,A3) | | | | | |
|Between Sex |453029.88 |1 |453029.88 |8.57 |.01 |
|(B1,B2) | | | | | |
|Interaction |686841.98 |2 |343420.99 |6.49 |.01 |
|A * B | | | | | |
|Within Groups |14712070.16 |294 |50041.055 | |
|Total |17822839.00 |299 |59608.15 | |

The results have shown that the electronic games are helpful for better performance up to some extent as low users were found to be best achievers (X=1168.05) while non users achieve (X=1043.35) and the heavy users were at lowest mean value (X=967.71).
Excessive use of electronic game which naturally means excessive time spent on playing diminish the progress in study, which is clearly indicated by the table 2 where the effect of electronic game on various playing levels found to be significantly adverse (p