Engagement in educational games and quality of life in early and middle childhood: evidence from a developing country

Abbasi, AZ, Azeem, S, Farooq, MU, Hussain, K, Ting, DH, Rehman, U, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524 and Pakpour, AH, 2023. Engagement in educational games and quality of life in early and middle childhood: evidence from a developing country. Current Psychology, 42, pp. 19386-19400. ISSN 1046-1310

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Abstract

Serious games (SGs), are gaining prominence as a tool for early education at home as well as in school settings. Given the mixed effects of gamification on various aspects of users' lives, it is pertinent to study its broader effects on a child’s pre-school and school years. Given the lack of consensus on a comprehensive measure that encapsulates these effects on an individual’s routine functioning, the present study examined whether various engagement states in SGs use influence a relatively broader measure of users' functioning across significant life domains such as Quality of Life (QoL). It is argued that it would serve scholars, teachers, and parents better to understand the broader implications of SGs on children’s overall QoL rather than isolated physiological and behavioral effects. Consequently, utilizing structural equation modeling, results from 335 parents of 2–10-year-olds in a developing country showed that cognitive and behavioral engagement in gamified applications appear to influence the child’s QoL, but not affective engagement. Results are discussed in terms of the consequences of using game-based technology for a child's development, with far-reaching academic, personal, physical, and social implications not only for the school-going ages, but also for early teenage years. The results are promising in relation to QoL. The findings indicate the role modern technology plays in improving individuals' lives. The findings provide scholars, parents, and creators of SGs important information for their plan of action regarding children’s exposure to SGs and making SGs a frequent aspect of the learning experience early in life.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Current Psychology
Creators:	Abbasi, A.Z., Azeem, S., Farooq, M.U., Hussain, K., Ting, D.H., Rehman, U., Griffiths, M.D. and Pakpour, A.H.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	August 2023
Volume:	42
ISSN:	1046-1310
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s12144-022-03558-1 DOI 1578384 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022. The version of record of this article, first published in Current Psychology, is available online at Publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org//10.1007/s12144-022-03558-1.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	01 Aug 2022 10:30
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2023 14:21
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/46794

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