Computer gaming’s facilitation of the English subject : A quantitative research on the influence of computer gaming on students' English performance

Abstract: The focus of this study is the correlation between spent time on gaming and student grades. It is my hypothesis that computer gaming has potential for students to acquire communicative competences in English. The aim of the essay is to see what effect computer gaming have on grading outcomes in the English subject for upper secondary school students in Sweden. The study was conducted using a survey concerning: students’ gaming habits, how much time they spent gaming on a daily basis, what kinds of games they were playing and how they felt that they used English whilst playing those games. The survey was conducted on two English classes in an ICT school. 25 students participated from grades 2 and 3 in the Swedish upper secondary school system. Based on the data from the survey, four gamer-groups emerged based on time spent on playing computer games: Non-gamer, occasional-gamer, moderate- gamer and frequent-gamer. Results indicate that occasional game play (maximum two hours a day) led to higher proficiencies in English (as shown by their grades) than the other groups. There was also an indication that no time spent on gaming might be disadvantageous.