Academic Log Example

Ventura, Matthew, Valerie Shute, and Yoon Jeon Kim. "Video gameplay, personality and academic performance." Computers & Education. 58.4 (2012): 1260-1266. Web. 1 Apr. 2012.



Claim: Video games actually tend to improve social and cause other positive benefits.
Reasons: 
1)Like many other forms of entertainment (e.g., movies, music), video games are so popular because they engage a particular (and rather broad) audience.
2)video games can be seen as vehicles for exposing players to challenging problem solving activities. 
Support: 
1)engagement in video games has been claimed to be a product of particular video game features including: arousal, challenge, competition, diversion, fantasy, and social interaction
2)problem solving in video games requires a willingness to work hard despite repeated failure



Matthew Ventura, Valerie Shute, Yoon Jeon Kim explain in their 2012 article "Video gameplay, personality and academic performance" that video games may actually cause positive influences on certain people. He begins by describing how older studies denouncing games were actually incomplete and biased, and newer, more advanced studies describe all the benefits from different types of gaming. The authors explain the modern research into gaming in order to prove the validation to the pass time. This article uses a praising tone towards the audience of education research that it was intended for

What strikes me most is that about half the article is in parenthesis, which could easily provide further information and other sources.

quotes: Challenge entails adjusting the optimal level of difficulty for a player and is consistent with the theory of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), which states that learning takes place right at the outer edges of one’s abilities. 

    Thus video games can be seen as vehicles for exposing players to challenging problem solving activities. These problem solving activities become more difficult as the game progresses. This repeated exposure to problem solving can affect Conscientiousness, Openness, and academic performance in many ways. First, problem solving in video games requires many organizational skills important to Conscientiousness. Organizational skills in video games can be anything from managing time to solving an investigation case (e.g., L.A. Noir), managing resources (e.g., World of Goo), to maintaining skills to upgrade in characters (e.g., World of Warcraft). Additionally, problem solving in video games requires a willingness to work hard despite repeated failure, which is another important aspect of Conscientiousness.

    Video Games expose players into a realm of problem solving. As their gameplay continues, so does the difficulty of the problems. They come with many different organizational skills that can be helpful to a person, such as resource management. It also requires hard work despite many failures, which is also important to the development of a person.