Do Digital Games Diminish Learning Motivation? Insights from a 3-Year Longitudinal Study of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Japan

• In Event: Protest, the Digital and Social Change

Proposal

The potential detrimental effects of digital game usage on learning have garnered global interest. Amidst concerns such as gaming addiction, the Covid-19 pandemic witnessed the deployment of the "#PlayApartTogether" initiative, endorsing indoor gaming to mitigate outdoor activities, an endeavor supported by the WHO Director-General. Given the dual facets of utility and adverse outcomes associated with game utilization, it is imperative to scrutinize the impact of recommended game usage during the Covid-19 pandemic on learning across diverse educational and informational contexts worldwide.

In this study, we leverage data from the extensive longitudinal survey "Japanese Longitudinal Study of Children and Parents (JLSCP)" conducted in Japan, analyzing the relationship between game usage time and learning motivation.
This longitudinal survey project involves an 8-year follow-up of the same respondents. The analyzed dataset for this study encompasses cohorts transitioning from 4th to 6th grade of elementary school, 1st to 3rd grade of junior high school, and 1st to 3rd grade of high school, with data collected between July and September of 2020 (Time1), 2021 (Time2), and 2022 (Time3). The sample sizes were 3195, 2383, and 1945, respectively.
Learning motivation scores were computed by aggregating responses to a four-item scale assessing attitudes toward studying, encompassing "liking to study" and "feeling inclined to study," with higher values indicating stronger learning motivation. To facilitate within-person causal inference, the analysis employed the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM).
The findings are as follows:

For the cohort transitioning from 4th to 6th grade:
Significant paths were observed from learning motivation to game usage duration in both the Time1 to Time2 and Time2 to Time3 transitions, with coefficients of -0.21 and -0.24, respectively. The path from game usage duration to learning motivation was significant at the 1% level in the Time1 to Time2 transition (coefficient: -0.07), while insignificance characterized the Time2 to Time3 path.

For the cohort transitioning from 1st to 3rd year of junior high school:
Significant paths were evident from learning motivation to game usage duration in both the Time1 to Time2 and Time2 to Time3 transitions, with coefficients of -0.24 and -0.27, respectively. The path from game usage duration to learning motivation was significant at the 0.1% level in the Time1 to Time2 transition (coefficient: -0.13), while insignificance characterized the Time2 to Time3 path.

For the cohort transitioning from 1st to 3rd year of high school:
Significant paths were evident from learning motivation to game usage duration in both the Time1 to Time2 and Time2 to Time3 transitions, with coefficients of -0.25 and -0.45, respectively. However, none of the paths from game usage duration to learning motivation reached statistical significance.

In addition, all goodness-of-fit indices demonstrated satisfactory values.
These results show a clear causal relationship in which low motivation to learn is a factor in prolonged game use. In contrast, the causal relationship between prolonged game playing and low motivation to learn was limited to the change from 4th to 5th grade elementary school students and from 1st to 2nd grade junior high school students. This may be partly due to the extreme increase in game playing time during the summer of 2020 to 2021, when the Covid19 pandemic was at its height in Japan. The present study did not find a consistent effect of digital game use on motivation to learn, but it did indicate the possibility of a limited effect in elementary and junior high school students. In addition, longer duration of game use is a clear indication of low motivation to learn.

Author

• Shiroh OHNO, The University of Tokyo