Bond University

Are you worried about how much time your child spends playing video games? Do they “hibernate” for hours in their room, talking what seems like gibberish to their friends? Fresh air and life away from gaming are undeniably important. But it may help to know our research shows many English teachers are thinking seriously about how gaming applies in their classrooms – even if there are divided opinions about how to approach it.

Video games and English education

• While many gamers are over 18, we know video games are very important to young people’s culture and identity.
• It found 93% of 5-14 year-olds and 91% of 15-24 year-olds surveyed in Australia play video games.
• From an English teachers’ perspective, many video games have complex narrative scripts and plots and clear character development.

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Our research

To better understand how teachers value digital games in their classrooms and how they use them, we surveyed 201 high school English teachers around Australia. They came from all school sectors. More than 60% of those surveyed had been teaching for at least ten years. Our research found:
58.6% of teachers surveyed believed digital games are a “legitimate text type”. This means they thought they can be taught in English programs alongside other texts such as plays, books and poetry. A further 27.4% were unsure and 14% of respondents said digital games were not legitimate texts
85% had not used digital games as a main or “focus” text for classroom study, with 74% having no plans to do so in the future
teachers with less experience were more likely to think they could use video games as a text for classroom study. For example, teachers who had used digital games with their students were 260% more likely to have 15 years or less experience
of those not using digital games as a focus or supplementary text, 23% reported limited knowledge of, and time to explore, how to use them in the classroom
80% of teachers had not received professional development on how to use digital games but 60% had independently read articles, books, or chapters about them.

Read more:
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What does the curriculum say?

• While digital games are indeed multimodal texts, the curriculum does not overtly name digital games (or video games) as an example of a multimodal text.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, only 30% of our respondents felt digital games were mentioned in the curriculum.

Teachers in their own words

• In open-ended questions, teachers revealed strong and in some cases, polarised views about video games in their classrooms.
• Students do not read books ‘en masse’ anymore, yet we as English teachers insist on dragging them kicking and screaming through texts they detest, whilst penalising them for playing the digital games they love.
• Teachers also spoke of the rich, complex nature of some games.
• But some teachers also said video games hampered students’ creativity:
  I am so over this stupid fixation.

What does this mean?

• This suggests there needs to be clearer curriculum guidelines about their use in the classroom (rather than general references to “multimodal” texts).
• We need students to be able to think critically when engaging with all types of texts.
• Read more:
  Vacuuming, moving house, unpacking are boring in real life – so why is doing them in a video game so fun?

Laura Scholes has received funding from The Australian Research Council, Catholic Education, Qld, The Department of Education, Qld, and the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre. Amanda Gutierrez, Kathy Mills, and Luke Rowe do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.