While Video Games Are Used to Teach in Schools, Adult Drivers Are Learning Bad Habits from Them

US Study Analyzes Games as Teaching Tool, German Study Suggests Racing Games Lower Risk Avoidance

Two Reuters reports over the weekend together form an ominous picture. One discusses classroom learning using video games, and points out that video games don't teach students about reality. The other, based on a Germany study just released, shows how commercial video games can "teach" something less desirable: aggressive driving.

The earlier Reuters article discusses a MacArthur foundation study concerning classroom education using video games and simulations. To be fair, the article does quote educators as saying that they do differentiate between games that teach aggression and other undesirable behaviors, and examples of games used in the classroom include a simulation of a park ecosystem, where the student attempts to determine the reason why fish in the park are dying.

The report does discuss whether students are learning what they should from simulations, or whether they need to experience the real-world environment more frequently. A similar question has been raised in surgical education, where in some types of surgery, younger surgeons with video game experience are better able to visualize three dimensional situations inside the patients using video monitors, but other training may not represent the real world situation well enough.

Classroom environments also produce two other situations mentioned in the Reuters article - students enjoying the enhanced computer environment, and so finding the real world "boring," and the interest by educational professionals in "digital media literacy," a familiarity with digital media which, as the saying goes, can breed contempt.

The German report mentioned by Reuters in another article gives an example of such contempt. While the connection between "shooter" type games and aggressive feelings and behavior had been studied and identified previously, the more recent study looked at the thoughts and behavior of drivers as compared with their use of "reckless driving" video games for entertainment.