An eight-week commercial video game intervention produced significant gains on all three measured graduate skills relative to control, totalling about 14 hours of play¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr1·q3
Currency · newest study 2017 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
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q3 i? All three self-report measures showed significant increases for the intervention group over control, with large effect sizes (Cohen's d between 0.9 and 1.15). → Matthew Barr 2017
Evidence¶
Matthew Barr 2017¶
Matthew Barr. (2017). Video games can develop graduate skills in higher education students: A randomised trial. Computers & Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.05.016
q3 · i? · causal · r1
Overall result of the randomised trial: intervention students played specified games under controlled conditions over eight weeks (14 h total across eight games). All three measures showed significant increases and no confidence interval crossed zero; Cronbach's alphas at baseline were 0.88, 0.91 and 0.84.
"Test scores for communication, adaptability and resourcefulness all showed signi ficant increases for the game-playing invention group over the control group, and 95% con fidence intervals calculated for the difference between mean scores for the control and intervention groups did not cross zero"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- A larger proportion of game-playing students showed positive score change than control students on adaptability and resourcefulness, but not significantly on communication — reports the opposite
- Playing commercial video games for eight weeks improved self-reported communication skill more than control conditions in a randomised trial of undergraduates — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Playing commercial video games for eight weeks improved self-reported resourcefulness more than control conditions in a randomised trial of undergraduates — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Video game engagement is predicted by hours of play, playing with others, gender, and task orientation, with hours of play the strongest predictor — related
- Existing extracurricular video game play habits show no significant relationship with graduate attribute attainment among higher education students — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
game-intervention-gains-all-three-graduate-skills |
title |
An eight-week commercial video game intervention produced significant gains on all three measured graduate skills relative to control, totalling about 14 hours of play |
description |
An eight-week commercial video game intervention produced significant gains on all three measured graduate skills relative to control, totalling about 14 hours of play |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2017 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-16 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — matthew-barr-2017 |
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