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Boys' and Girls' Use ofCognitive Strategy WhenLearning to Play Video GamesFran C. Blumberg a & Lori M. Sokol aa Division of Psychological and Educational ServicesGraduate School of Education, Fordham UniversityPublished online: 07 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Fran C. Blumberg & Lori M. Sokol (2004) Boys' and Girls' Useof Cognitive Strategy When Learning to Play Video Games, The Journal of GeneralPsychology, 131:2, 151-158, DOI: 10.3200/GENP.131.2.151-158

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The Journal of General Psychology, 2004, 131(2), 151–158

151

Boys’ and Girls’ Use of Cognitive StrategyWhen Learning to Play Video Games

FRAN C. BLUMBERGLORI M. SOKOL

Division of Psychological and Educational ServicesGraduate School of Education

Fordham University

ABSTRACT. The authors examined gender differences in the cognitive strategies that chil-dren use when they learn how to play a video game. They interviewed 2nd- and 5th-gradeboys and girls about how often they played video games and what they did “when learn-ing how to play a video game.” The children’s responses to the latter question were cate-gorized as either internally or externally oriented (i.e., reading a manual vs. asking forhelp, respectively). The results indicated that more frequent players and older childrenwere more likely to cite internally based strategies. No main effects of gender were foundfor the proportions of the internally vs. externally based strategies that were cited.

Key words: child development, cognitive strategies, video games

IN THE WORLD OF VIDEO GAMES, equal access does not necessarily meanequal opportunity. For example, current findings indicate that girls and boys maynot equally avail themselves of video game experience (Subrahmanyam, Kraut,Greenfield, & Gross, 2001). The study of the impact of that differential experi-ence is warranted given the link between the playing of video games and the infor-mal education that it might provide (Greenfield & Cocking, 1994).

Video games often provide the first opportunity for children to interact withcomputer technology (Greenfield, Brannon, & Lohr, 1996). According toGreenfield and her colleagues (e.g., Greenfield, Brannon, et al.; Greenfield,DeWinstanley, Kilpatrick, & Kaye, 1996; Subrahmanyam, et al. 2001), videogames might influence information processing skills such as those pertinent tospatial ability, which in turn, have implications for more complex computer use(Goldstein, 1994).

The results of studies in which researchers examined children’s video gameperformance typically reveal gender differences. For example, Greenfield, Bran-non, et al. (1996) found a significant gender difference in the proportion of boysand girls reaching criterion on a video game that involved shooting down starships.

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Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (1994) also found that spatial performance wassignificantly better among fifth-grade boys than among fifth-grade girls on a videogame assessment of mental rotation.

Girls and boys also show differential video game experience that has impli-cations for their level of expertise while they play. For example, both gender andthe extent of video game practice were related to participants’ scores on the videogames Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (1994) used in their study. Similarly,Greenfield, DeWinstanley, et al. (1996) found that boys had more overall videogame experience than did girls, which may have contributed to their superiorvideo game performance. The results of a study by Kafai (1996) also showedthat gender differences were reflected in children’s designs of video games toteach fractions: Boys emphasized competitive goals, and girls emphasizedinstructional goals. Those differential approaches might reflect girls’ greaterconcern with the exchange of information as opposed to boys’ greater concernwith task mastery and completion (Ching, Kafai, & Marshall, 2000). Accord-ingly, girls’ strategies for learning how to play a video game might emphasizegreater cooperation and collaboration between players, whereas boys’ strategiesmight emphasize greater self-reliance, less consultation with others, and greaterinternal generation of game strategies.

The present study was designed to examine potential differences in the cog-nitive strategies that girls and boys report they use when they learn to play anunfamiliar video game. The assessment was also linked to their self-reported fre-quency of game play. Consistent with findings from Kafai (1996) and her col-leagues (Ching et al., 2000), we hypothesized that girls would be more reliant onexternally based strategies than would boys. We also expected girls to report lessfrequency of play than did boys. Similarly, we hypothesized that boys would bemore reliant on internally based strategies than would girls and that they wouldreport greater frequency of play than did the girls. Finally, we hypothesized thatinternally based strategies would be related to better game performance more sothan would externally based strategies.

The findings reported here were drawn from a larger investigation thatexamined second- and fifth-grade children’s patterns of attention and goals forlearning while they played a video game (Blumberg, 1998). The focus was onlyon children’s game performance. In the larger study, children were also inter-

152 The Journal of General Psychology

Portions of this research were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Researchin Child Development, in Minneapolis, MN, in March, 2001.

The authors thank Joseph P. Quinlan, the principal of P.S. 127 in Brooklyn, New York,and the second- and fifth-grade teachers and students at that school who lent their sup-port and cooperation. Special thanks go to the anonymous reviewers and John Randall fortheir helpful comments in the preparation of this manuscript.

Address correspondence to Fran C. Blumberg, Division of Psychological and Edu-cational Services, Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, 113 W. 60th Street,New York, NY 10023; blumberg@fordham.edu (e-mail).

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viewed about their video game habits, such as how they went about learning toplay video games and the frequency of their play. Each child then played a pop-ular, gender-neutral video game for a brief period. In the present article, wereport the findings pertinent to the questions on how the children went aboutlearning to play the games and the frequency of their play, and the relationshipof their answers to their video game performance.

Method

Participants

The participants were 46 second-grade children (20 girls, 26 boys; M age =7.4 years, range = 6.9–10.3 years) and 58 fifth-grade children (23 girls, 35 boys;M age = 10.5 years, range = 7.8–11.8 years), who attended schools in an ethni-cally diverse, middle-class school district in New York City. All the participantshad submitted signed parental or guardian consent forms as required for theirinvolvement in the study.

Video Game Task

We used a Sega Game Gear color portable video game system to presentSega’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 video game. The primary goal of the video gameis to complete as many successive levels of the game as possible. To meet thatgoal, a player is given three “Sonics,” or lives, at the start of each game. EachSonic ensures one round of play. When a player loses a Sonic on a given level,the game reverts to the beginning of that level. A player accumulates Sonics bylocating a free Sonic (represented by a small Sonic the Hedgehog icon), or byaccumulating 100 rings during a round of play, or by receiving a free Sonic thatis awarded on a random basis at the conclusion of a level. A player loses a Sonicthrough contact with dynamic hazards (e.g., robots that spew rocks) or statichazards (e.g., spikes, lava).

We selected the game because it was popular at the time the study was con-ducted and because it was gender neutral and nonviolent. Based on the goals ofthe game, we used the following dependent variables to characterize game per-formance: (a) The highest number of levels completed, (b) the highest levelattained, (c) the number of free Sonics obtained, (d) the number of Sonics lost,and (e) the number of games started.

Procedure

Each child was tested individually in a quiet area on the premises of the par-ticipating school. The experimenter (the first author) introduced herself to thechild and explained that portions of the student’s responses to questions would

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be tape-recorded. The children were then told that they would be asked to playa video game on the Game Gear, but that before they began playing the gamethey would be asked a few questions about playing video games.

The questions of interest to the present investigation concerned (a) the fre-quency of video game play that children reported (“How often would you say youplay video games? A lot or a little?”), (b) what they did to make sure they under-stood how to play a game (“What do you do to make sure that you understandhow to play a video game?”), and (c) whether they had played the video gamethat was to be used in the study (“Have you ever played Sonic the Hedgehog 2for Game Gear?”). If the answer to the last question was yes, then the experi-menter would ask, “Have you played Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Game Gear manytimes, not so many times, or only a few times?” After the children had answeredthe questions, they played the game for 10 min without interuption. During thattime, the experimenter recorded information relative to characterizing the child’sgame performance (see section headed Video Game Task).

Coding Scheme for Interview Responses

We devised a coding scheme to examine the types of information that theparticipants provided in response to questions about their strategies for learninghow to play a video game. All coding was done by using the transcripts of theparticipants’ tape-recorded interview responses. A second transcriber reviewed alltranscripts. The few minor discrepancies were reconciled in new transcripts thatwere used for coding children’s responses.

Two independent raters coded all the responses for reference to a specifictype of strategy. The participants’ responses were characterized as internallybased (i.e., does not consult sources external to the individual) or as externallybased (i.e., does consult sources external to the individual). The strategies thatwere labeled “internally based” comprised learning to play by reading instruc-tions or through trial and error. The strategies that were labeled “externally based”comprised learning to play by asking for instructions or by watching someoneelse play. Responses that were too ambiguous or not informative enough to beappropriately classified were also characterized as “none.” Interrater reliabilitywas above 90% for strategy type (internally, externally based, or none) and forspecific strategy identified (e.g., reading instructions).

Results

Characterization of the Participants’ Game Experience and Game Play

The participants were classified as frequent players (those who reported thatthey played video games “a lot”) or infrequent players (those who reported thatthey played video games “not a lot”). That general distinction was supported by a

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point-biserial correlation, (rpb = .28, p < .01), which indicated that the participantswho were characterized as frequent players showed significantly better game per-formance than did the infrequent players (see Blumberg, 1998). Seventy-two per-cent of the 44% of all children who reported frequent video game play were boys.The results of a chi-square analysis indicated a significant difference in the distri-bution of male and female frequent players, χ2 (1, N = 104) = 5.82, p < .02.

All but 9 of the children (7 second graders and 2 fifth graders) had previousexperience playing the video game that was used for the study, which obviatedthe need to examine the effects of game familiarity with performance.

Strategy Type

The children’s responses were classified into three mutually exclusive andexhaustive categories: (a) internally based strategies (63% of all responses), (b)externally based strategies (18% of all responses), and (c) none (19% of allresponses). We excluded the last group of children from further analyses. The pro-portion of fifth graders who referred to internally based strategies was signifi-cantly greater than that for second graders, z = −3.73, p < .05. In particular, fifthgraders made proportionally greater reference to trial and error than did youngerchildren, z = 2.42, p < .05 (see Table 1). Contrary to our expectations, we foundno significant differences in the proportions of boys and girls who referred tointernally based strategies. The proportion of children citing a particular strategytype by grade is presented in Table 1.

Among the children who were characterized as frequent video game play-ers, a greater proportion referred to internally based strategies than they did toexternally based strategies, z = −1.78, p < .05.

Blumberg & Sokol 155

TABLE 1. Proportion of Children Reporting a Given Strategy Type byGrade Excluding Those for Whom No Classifiable Response Was Made (n = 20)

Grade

Strategy type 2nd (n = 29) 5th (n = 55)

InternalRead instructions .21 .35 .30Trial and error .48 .47 .48

Total .69 .82 .77External

Ask for instructions .10 . 05 .07Watch someone .21 .13 .15

Total .31 .18 .23

Total(n = 84)

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Relationship Between Characteristics of Children and Their Play, StrategyType, and Game Performance

We followed the procedures reported in greater detail by Blumberg (1998,2000) and used factor analysis to obtain a measure of the children’s video gameperformance. The dependent variables considered in that analysis comprised thehighest level that the children completed in the game, the total number of levelsattained, the total number of lives lost, the total number of lives gained, and thenumber of games started during the 10-min free-play session. We found a singlefactor accounting for 74% of the variance, which supported the contention thatall dependent variables were indicators of game performance for the video gameused in the study. We normalized that variable to have a mean of 0 and a standarddeviation of 1, in which higher scores indicated better game play.

We conducted a series of two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) to exam-ine the effects of gender, grade, strategy type, and frequency of game play on thechildren’s game performance. To maximize the number of participants per cell inthose analyses, a hierarchical log-linear analysis was used to examine relation-ships between design variables (grade, gender, strategy type, and frequency ofgame play). The findings indicated that the relationship between design variableswas best accounted for by main effects of grade and of strategy type, and the gen-der by frequency interaction.

A subsequent Gender × Strategy Type ANOVA yielded a main effect ofgrade, F(1, 80) = 2,100.79, p < .02, whereby fifth graders showed better gameperformance (M = .55, SD = .60) than did second graders (M = −.60, SD = .94).The main effect of strategy type was significant for p < .06, whereby the trendsindicated that children who made references to internally based strategies showedgreater performance than did those who made references to externally basedstrategies. We found no significant interactions. A Gender × Frequency of PlayANOVA yielded a main effect of frequency of play, F(1, 80) = 184.25, p < .05,whereby frequent players showed greater performance (M = .33, SD = .95) thandid infrequent players (M = .05, SD = .85). We found no significant interactions.

Discussion

This study was designed to investigate potential differences in boys’and girls’self-reported approaches to the playing of a novel video game. Specifically, it washypothesized that girls would show greater inclination toward strategies thatinvolved asking others for assistance (referred to as externally based strategies),whereas boys would show greater inclination to use more self-initiated strategies(referred to as internally based strategies). That pattern of findings was not sup-ported in the present study.

The findings did, however, show developmental differences as younger chil-dren were more likely to report the use of internally based strategies. Similarly, self-

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reported frequent players were more likely to cite internally than externally basedstrategies. Of the two internally based strategies, children made greater referenceto trial and error strategies than to reading the instructions. That pattern of findingscould reflect the instantiation of a schema for video game play on the part of theolder children. Specifically, the older children may have reported the use of a trialand error strategy based on their confidence in the ability to switch from playingone game to another with minimal textual support other than that provided withinthe game itself. That confidence or sense of self-efficacy could have been based ontheir status as frequent players, which is how nearly all the children in the studywere characterized. However, the hypothesis clearly extends beyond the scope ofthe data and requires further investigation.

The citation of internally based strategies was not explicitly linked to bettergame performance, although trends in the data indicated support for that relation-ship. Not surprisingly, frequency of play was linked to greater performance. Wefound no gender differences in performance, which may be a result of the popu-larity of the game that was used and its popularity among boys and girls at the timeof data collection. Boys, however, were more likely to be frequent players thanwere girls.

Clearly, gender was not implicated in our findings concerning either cita-tion of internally or externally based video game strategies or game perfor-mance. Thus, the informal educational gains attributed to boys, as in the caseof enhanced spatial skills given their frequent video game experience (Subrah-manyam & Greenfield, 1994), may not extend to the application of cognitivestrategies, as considered in the present study. However, the amount of informallearning time spent by children playing video games, and the continuing dis-tinctions found in boys’ and girls’ preferences for games that may have differ-ing ramifications for cognitive gains (see Green & Bavelier, 2003), warrantscontinuing investigation of the impact video game play has on boys and girlsduring middle childhood.

REFERENCES

Blumberg, F. C. (1998). Developmental differences at play: Children’s selective attentionand performance in video games. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 19,615–624.

Blumberg, F. C. (2000). The effects of children’s goals for learning on video game per-formance. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21, 641–653.

Ching, C., Kafai, Y., & Marshall, S. (2000). Spaces for change: Gender and technologyaccess in collaborative software design. Journal of Science Education and Technology,9, 67–78.

Goldstein, J. H. (1994). Sex differences in toy play and use of video games. In J. H. Gold-stein (Ed.), Toys, play, and child development (pp. 110–129). New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2003). Action video game modifies visual selective attention.Nature, 423 (6939), 534–538.

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Greenfield, P. M., Brannon, C., & Lohr, D. (1996). Two-dimensional representation ofmovement through three-dimensional space: The role of video game expertise. In P.M. Greenfield & R. R. Cocking (Eds.), Interacting with video (pp. 169–185). Norwood,NJ: Ablex.

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Kafai, Y. B. (1996). Gender differences in children’s constructions of video games. InP. M. Greenfield & R. R. Cocking (Eds.), Interacting with video (pp. 39–66). Norwood,NJ: Ablex.

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Subrahmanyam, K., Kraut, R., Greenfield, P. M., & Gross, E. (2001). New forms of elec-tronic media. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media(pp. 73–99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Manuscript received November 12, 2002Revision accepted for publication September 16, 2003

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