Effect of Video Game Practice on Spatial Skills in Girls and Boys

Sep 17, 2026

The study examines how action video game practice influences spatial abilities in girls and boys. Spatial performance was assessed with a computerized spatial skills battery and compared across pretest and posttest conditions. Video game practice produced significantly greater improvements than word-game practice overall, with no significant gender-by-treatment interaction. Benefits were especially strong for children who began with relatively weak spatial skills, suggesting video games may help reduce gender-linked differences in spatial performance.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Effect of Video Game Practice on Spatial Skills in Girls and Boys

Subrahmanyam and Greenfield

# Effect of Video Game Practice onSpatial Skills in Girls and Boys KAVERI SUBRAHMANYAMPATRICIA M.GREENFIELDUniversity of California,Los Angeles A study of the effect of video game practice on spatial abilities in girls and boys wascarried out.Spatial performance,measured using two subtests of a computerizedspatial skills battery,was significantly better in boys than in girls duning pretest assess-ment.Subjects then practiced on an action video game,Marble Madness,or acomputerized word game,Conjecture.Video game practice was significantly moreeffective than the word game in improving spatial performance on the postlestassessment;there was no significant interaction of gender with experimental treat-ment.However,video game practice was more effective for children who started outwith relatively poor spatial skills.The pattern of results suggests that video games maybe useful in equalizing individual differences in spatial skill performance,includingthose associated with gender. In recent years there has been increasing recognition that,on the one hand,education is not limited to formal schooling and,on the other hand,cognitiveprocesses are broader than those taught and tested in school(Greenfield &Childs,1991;Greenfield &Lave,1982;Guberman &Greenfield,1991;Rogoff&Lave,1984;Saxe,1991;Scribner,1986;Scribner &Cole,1981).This has ledto the study of both informal education and everyday cognition. Informal education takes place by means of a host of cultural tools (Vygotsky,1978),among which the electronic media have become increasingly important.The computer is the newest such medium.Whereas the impact of explicitlyeducational computer formats has been amply studied (e.g.,Pea,1985;Sal-omon,Perkins,&Globerson,1988),recreational forms of computer use havebeen relatively ignored as a means of informal education.Chief among these isthe action video game. ## SUBRAHMANYAM AND GREENFIELD The pervasive nature of these games is evident from a 1982 Gallup poll,which indicated that more than 93%of the nation's youth have at least playedvideo games at some time or another(Alperowicz,1983).Furthermore,in arandom sample of 748 of the 1,274 respondents in a high school survey nearStanford University,it was found that students reported playing an average of 1.25 hours per week in a video arcade and 0.93 hours per week at home(Rogers,Vale,&Sood,1984).Thus,the action video game has the potential to be asignificant tool of cognitive socialization. Whereas there has been considerable public concern about the possible deleteri-ous effects of video games(e.g.,Mayfield,1982),there are relatively few dataregarding their impact.A number of studies have investigated the social and person-ality correlates of video game play(Dominick,1984;Gibb,Bailey,Lambirth,&Wilson,1983;Morlock,Yando,&Nigolean,1985).There has also been a lot ofspeculation about whether computer and video technology requires and developsvarious cognitive skills.Ball(1978)speculated that video games could teach eye-hand coordination,decision making,the following of directions,numerical con-cepts,and word recognition skills.Lowery and Knirk(1982-1983)proposed thatvideo game playing might play a role in enhancing eye-hand coordination. Greenfield (1983,1984,1990,1993)suggested that there might be a set ofliteracy skills associated with computers and the video screen that are distinctfrom the traditional literacy skills required for print media (Greenfield,1972).This idea has stimulated research as to whether video games might have benefi-cial effects on various cognitive processes(Greenfield,Brannon,&Lohr,1994;Greenfield,Camaioni,et al.,1994;Greenfield,deWinstanley,Kilpatrick,&Kaye,1994;Okagaki &Frensch,1994).Possibly,video games are also a meansof informal education that develop computer and video literacy skills that aredistinct from the traditional print literacy skills taught at school(Greenfield,1972,1990,1993). These speculations about the effect of video game training fit

FAQs

How were spatial skills measured in the study?

Spatial performance was measured using two subtests of a computerized spatial skills battery.

Does video game practice improve spatial skills more than word game practice?

Yes. Video game practice was significantly more effective than the word game in improving spatial performance from pretest to posttest.

Did the effect of video game practice differ between girls and boys?

No significant interaction of gender with experimental treatment was found, though pretest performance was better in boys than in girls.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Nguyễn Văn Học