Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine 2017
189
Video games as learning tools at school: parents’ attitude Claudia CARISSOLIa,*, Daniela VILLANIa, Melissa CAPUTOa and Stefano TRIBERTIa a Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
Abstract. Interest in video games for educational purposes is continuously increasing. According to the Technology Acceptance Model, attitude toward a technology is an important factor to its adoption. Up to now, a few studies have investigated the attitude of students and teachers towards video games as learning tools, but almost none have addressed parents' perspectives. This study investigates parents’ attitudes towards video games at school. Participants show a mildly favourable opinion about video games at school, but some doubts still emerge about video games usefulness. More, experience in using video games influences parents’ attitude: specifically, gamers consider video games more useful at school and show a clear preference of school adopting them than non-gamers.
Keywords. Video game, Education, Parent Attitude, Computer Self Efficacy
1. Introduction Video games (VGs) represent a very widespread activity among young people: they are more and more considered an important part of our culture as a whole [1]. The interest towards the use of VGs for educational purposes is continuously increasing. Video games seem to be able to promote a students’ positive attitude toward learning and school [2–4]. They offer the opportunities to apply knowledge in practice and they facilitate a “trial and error” learning process, improving problem-solving and critical thinking skills [5,6]. The availability of a technology represents a necessary but not sufficient condition to guarantee its effective use. According to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), to encourage the behavioral intention and actual use of video games, it is fundamental that all key stakeholders have a positive attitude toward these tools, finding them useful and easy to use [7]. Applied to school, this means that for an efficient adoption of video games as educational instruments, all stakeholders, such as students, teachers, school managers and parents, must be involved and having a positive approach [8]. At the moment, just a few studies have investigated the attitude of students and teachers towards VGs as learning tools [9,10], but almost none addressed parents' perspectives. This study is a preliminary investigation into the attitude towards video games at school in a sample of Italian parents.
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Corresponding Author:
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C. Carissoli et al. / Video games as learning tools at school: parents’ attitudes
2. Methods 2.1. Participants Participants were recruited by contacting elementary and lower secondary school managers via general advertisement on social media and through fliers distributed during events. Fifty-three participants completed an online survey after signing an informed consent. The recruitment criteria were: (a) being older than 18 years old, (b) being parent of a child attending primary (6-10 years old) or lower secondary school (11-13 years old) (c) having a digital device and internet (d) being able to read and understand Italian. 2.2. Procedure and Measure The online survey was constructed using Qualtrics, a web-based tool. Completion of the questionnaire took approximately 20 minutes. The survey consists of several sections investigating the following aspects: (1) demographic data; (2) parents’ familiarity with new technologies and VGs; (3) parents’ attitude towards Internet (Attitudes Towards the Internet Scale - ATIS Scale) [11], measured by 7-point Likert based subscales: General Internet Usage; Negative Internet Attitudes; (4) parents’ PC self-efficacy [12]; (5) parental attitude towards video games as learning tools at school that includes usefulness, ease of use, preference for video games (these scales have been adapted from [9]).
3. Results 20 fathers and 33 mothers completed the online survey. Participants' age ranged from 30 to 50 years old. Respondents’ children are attending mainly primary school (83%) and are predominantly males (66%). Respondents use Internet daily, own more than one digital device (e.g. PCs, smartphones and tablets) and feel quite competent in using PC (computer self-efficacy M = 3.64, SD = 1.18). Participants consider Internet quite useful and they usually surf (M=4.82, SD=.81). Nevertheless, they pointed out some distrust towards its use (negative attitude M=4.41 SD=1.09). More than half of respondents (55%) usually play VGs and they are moderately favorable towards the use of VGs at school (M=3.24; SD=1.05). Parents think that VGs are easy-to-use for their children (M=3.59; SD=.83), but are not fully persuaded about VGs usefulness (M=2.99; SD=.39). Data show positive correlations between the parents’ PC self-efficacy and their positive attitude towards VGs at school (Self Efficacy & VG usefulness at school r=.433; p
