REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

“Effects of Mobile Games in the Academic Performance of the Learners at APARRI EAST

NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL during the new normal”

INTRODUCTION:

Internet as a source of information plays an important role in developing one's mind and life

experiences by creating productive works in schools, offices, and even at home. Nowadays, this

can be a person's most efficient strategic tool for enabling himself to take charge and cope with

the fast growing technology.

The fact that people live in on informative lifestyle where everything is updated, internet became

one of the necessities of human beings regardless of age or sex in today's society. However, the

influence of this useful machine on youth is undeniably questionable. As to what Rock [1] said,

all these technologies are very good at distracting people. In line with this development, online

gaming was created to give entertainment to people.

Online gaming is one of the widely used leisure activities by many people. For some people it is

said that playing video games has a number of reasons to be played, for it can be a stress reliever,

challenge and competition, relaxation, enjoyment, social interaction, and even mentally escaping

from the real world.

For most people, on-line gaming is one of the best past time that they acquire specially for

teenagers, youngsters and students. According to Kuss & Griffiths [2], teens who play online

games are just having fun. They do not just actually play because of some sort of seriousness, but

also because they just want to feel relief. During school hours, students tend to feel stressed due

to loads of school works and through playing it will relive their stress.
It is undeniably questionable that playing online games provide them something that no one can

give. According to some researches it is beneficial. It enables the mind of the players to be more

active, especially those puzzle-based games. Furthermore, it helps the player to come up with

decisions in tight situations, especially those adventure games that keep the players to be alert,

active and strategic.

Students' learning takes place unexpectedly, but the inappropriate usage of playing online games

also leads in some problems such as being distracted in school. Further, it is where the attention

of the child were divided that even their health and social life is unknowingly affected.

Several studies in psychology have found out that increased time spent on the Internet can lead to

negative impact on a person's ability to communicate appropriately face-to-face with friends,

peers, family members including parents [3].

Studies revealed that the human brain is easy to destruct and one of the reasons is using

technology. The education system tends to go with the flow with this constant change in the

society in order to get things relevant with the generations today.

The researchers felt the need to determine the impact of online gaming to students' academic

performance and their social behavior. The purpose of this study is to find out the implications of

on-line gaming to the academic performance and social behavior of the students.

RESEARCH QUESTION 1:

Are mobile games beneficial for our cognitive capabilities? If so, how?

While video games are often derided as useless in real life, or unproductive, research shows

that video games do in fact improve people’s cognitive abilities. Studies have shown that
video games can increase competency in a number of areas including basic visual processes,

spatial attention, multi-tasking and problem solving. In fact, video games can combat the

mental decline associated with aging, bolstering cognitive functions like memory, attention

and abstract reasoning.

RESEARCH QUESTION 2:

How many hours do you spend most on a game for a day?

Playing mobile games might improve a child's motor skills, reaction time and even academic

performance, but new research shows that too much gaming can be linked to social and behavioral

problems.

Spanish investigators found that any skill enhancements linked to gaming among those aged 7 to 11

started to max out after about eight hours of gaming a week. And those who played nine hours or

more a week were more likely to have social and behavioral problems.

RESEARCH QUESTION 3:

Could mobile games be a hindrance in education?

On the one hand, playing video games probably doesn't harm school performance -- not as long

as kids don't play so much that they neglect school-related activities, like reading, or skimp on

sleep. And not as long as the games they play are age-appropriate, and don't cause emotional

troubles.
THESIS STATEMENT:

The purpose of the present paper is to identify trends in the digital game-based second language

learning research by synthesizing findings according to game types and genres, and their effect

on reading, writing, speaking, listening skills, and vocabulary outcomes. A total of 26 studies

were synthesized. The synthesis concludes that overall, both commercial and serious games and

synthetic immersive environments have positive effects on learning outcomes, especially

vocabulary. At the same time, the effectiveness of one game type or genre may depend on

learners’ gender, second language proficiency, gaming experience, and specific educational

objectives. Traditional drill-and-practice may be more effective for vocabulary consolidation

than some commercial games. Some learners may still prefer conventional instructions.

Recommendations for further research are discussed.

DISCUSSION ON QUESTION 1:

Meanwhile, tech giant Tencent, China’s largest gaming company, is said to be implementing

restrictions on play time for children. One example is “Honor of Kings” where Tencent limits

players under 18 years old to just two hours of play per day, and players under 12 years old to

one hour per day. Implementing this restriction is only possible because Tencent requires that

gamers verify their identity using the Real Name Identity System (RNIS). While supporters of

this policy would point to excessive gaming detracting from young people’s time spent

studying, maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle that includes gaming could be

advantageous to a child’s cognitive development.

The bottom-line: "One to nine hours per week seems to be safe, but playing more than nine hours --

one hour on weekdays and two hours on weekend days -- may be not recommended for children 7 to

11 years old," said study author Dr. Jesus Pujol.

But the study "does not permit [us] to directly establish whether the observed effects are a cause or
consequence of gaming," Pujol stressed.

"That is, children with peer conflicts and reduced pro-social abilities may show a tendency to isolate
and spend more time playing video games," he said.

"The results are common sense indicating that video gaming, per se, is neither good nor bad, but its
level of use makes it so," added Pujol. He is director of the MRI research unit in the department of
radiology at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona.

DISCUSSION ON QUESTION 3:

On the other hand, video games aren't a magical pill for boosting IQ, or transforming poor

students into excellent ones. But it appears that kids who play games with moderate frequency --

a few hours a week -- tend to have better academic skills than kids who don't play video games at

all.

In addition, there is evidence that certain types of games can enhance spatial skills, and possibly

help children to learn and to gain more knowledge.

DISCUSSION:

There is also evidence that, playing mobile games at night can disrupt sleep, which could explain

decrements in school performance. 

risk for developing attention problems at school.  

Playing violent mobile games may have a small -- but negative -- effect on behavior. 

And some kids may use games excessively so much that gaming dominates their lives and

interferes with study time.

But the PISA studies suggest that moderate gaming may have little or no negative effect on

school achievement, and it might even have a positive effect.

As I note elsewhere, there is also reason to think that playing action video games can boost

visual spatial skills, and perhaps even help dyslexic children improve their reading ability.

So there are both costs and benefits associated with video games, and these vary depending on

how and when kids play. It's also possible that the effects vary with content of a game. 

CONCLUSION:

As the respondents assessed, it can be inferred that Playing On-Line Games results to a positive

effect in the social behavior of the respondents. Even if the respondents play online games still

the personal interaction with others are not affected. They still do have their friends personally

and are able to socialize effectively.

The Academic Performance of the respondents is not affected even if they play online games.

Their grades are still good enough even if they spent time for playing. To sum up with the result,

the respondents have a good academic performance despite their involvement in playing online

games.
There is a significant relationship between the social behavior of the respondents and playing on-

line games in terms to its frequency specifically in the item saying: “I play on-line games before

going to bed” and “I play on-line games only on week-ends”. Also, in the types of on-line games

such as Minecraft, Defense of the Ancient, Farmville, Smite, and Candy Crush.

There is a significant relationship between the academic performance of the respondents and

playing online games during weekends. Which result to having a good grade while playing

online games. This can be interpreted as the trade-off when playing computer games. If the

student decides not to play, then there will be no deduction in the grades. Which is true to the

researchers' study for the respondents' academic performance is only significant to playing online

games during weekend. Weekends are the days when the respondents have their pleasure time

for recreational activities.

Meanwhile, since most of the student respondents are male and they are more frequently

engaged in playing on-line games, the school administrators and teacher in collaboration of the

parents might consider to promote physical health, sportsmanship, camaraderie and pro-social

skills to the students instead of getting engaged with online games.

Further, Parents-Teachers Association might consider being functional in all their

responsibilities. For example, the teacher might consider to notify the parents about the academic

performance and social behavior of the students inside the school facilities. This association can

strengthen the home and school partnership to supervise the students' activities.

SYNTHESIS:

In spite of growing attention to the effectiveness of mobile games on second language

acquisition, the lack of a systematic research review in this area is evident. The review of

previous research analyses identified gaps in the data collected. The lack of data synthesis on
sample, game types, and genres requires further exploration. Commonly agreed upon views on

language teaching and learning recognize that vocabulary, listening, reading, speaking, and

writing are essential for the development of second language proficiency [12] . In order to gather

more conclusive evidence about the educational value of video games, a stronger focus on the

use of mobile games in these domains of language acquisition would be beneficial.

Digital game-based second language learning is a relatively new field, so there is limited number

of empirical studies, which makes it difficult to conduct a meta-analysis. A synthesis of best

evidence, on the other hand, is possible [11] . Reinhardt [11] argues that “exploratory and

descriptive syntheses are important to determine common, operative elements of any analysis”.

Thus, the purpose of the present paper is to identify trends in the digital game-based second

language learning research by synthesizing findings according to game types and genres, and

their effect on the academic performance of the individual learners.

REFERENCES:

https://knepublishing.com/index.php/KnE-Social

https://knepublishing.com/index.php/KnE-Social/article/view/2447/5372

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502/cognitive-benefits-playing-

video-games

https://www.enago.com/academy/literature-review-tips-for-the-introduction-and-discussion-

sections/

https://www.parentingscience.com/Effects-of-video-games-on-school.html

https://www.scirp.org/html/6-1760655_61032.htm
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