Games v. Grades

Father-son research team proves video games lower students' academic performance

By: Zack Waldman

Posted: 9/25/07

Take a look in a student's dorm room. It's not hard to believe that textbooks and notebooks might take a backseat to Madden 2008, released in August, and Halo 3, released today.

"Students should be aware of the distractions that affect their grade performance," said Todd Stinebrickner, associate professor of economics and director of graduate studies at the University of Western Ontario.

Stinebrickner and his father, Ralph Stinebrickner, a professor of mathematics and computer science at Berea College in Kentucky, recently conducted a study that was part of a larger survey project about how college students use their time and the implications of that time use.

"We were really interested in the college dropout decision," Stinebrickner said. "Time use is a very big part of that decision."

A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that first-year students whose roommate brought a video game console to college studied, on average, 40 minutes less each day. Data showed that this significant decrease in study time caused first-semester grades to drop by .241 points on the 4.0 grade scale.

"The amount of time a student spends studying and the effort they put into it can weigh heavily on their overall performance in school," Stinebrickner said.

While at first glance, the study may seem to be stating the obvious, Stinebrickner said the conclusive evidence he and his father found linking studying time and grade performance is largely uncharted territory.

"Simply comparing the grades of students who study more to those students who study less and claiming that a causal link exists is not legitimate," Stinebrickner said. "People who tend to study more could be those who have more ability academically or those who are in more demanding classes. A lot of unwanted variables are introduced. Standard comparisons are problematic."

To narrow down the comparison, Stinebrickner and his father incorporated an instrumental variable. In this case, it was the presence of a video game console in dorm rooms.

"A video game player gives something that looks like the ideal test experiment. It is a known fact that video games naturally make students study less," Stinebrickner said. "Nothing is forced or could be considered artificial."

The Stinebrickners kept track of 210 randomly selected students in Berea's first semester in 2000 and 2001 through time-use diaries. The diaries, which were collected four times during the two-year span, were used to record how much time students spent sleeping, studying, attending classes and pursuing other activities, according to an article about the study in USA Today.

The presence of a video game console showed no noticeable effect on other distractions from study time, such as students' class attendance, partying, study efficiency or paid employment. However, there was a serious dip in time spent studying for those students whose roommate brought a console. Stinebrickner said that one can accurately attribute the lower grades of such students to less time spent studying.

"The main point is that a student should be efficient with his or her time," Stinebrickner said. "If a student can sneak in a little extra study time, research shows that that can go a long way."

Because the Stinebrickners' original driving force behind the survey project was to investigate why students stay in school and, conversely, why they don't, he also realizes that video games can have a positive contribution.

"I'm not saying video games should be banned. A lot of the things that make students happy also happen to hurt their study time," he said. "Having said that, you can't take away all entertaining hobbies from a student or there's a good chance you'll lose them."

If nothing else, the Stinebrickners' study mathematically confirms what parents, teachers and school administrators have been preaching for years: Studying helps.