SSHRC-funded 2007-2010
Literacy Learning through Videogames: Adolescent Boys’ Perspectives
Kathy Sanford

The rapidly growing phenomenon of videogames, and the learning that takes place through videogame play, has raised concerns about the negative impact such games are reputed to have on youth. Educators and parents urgently need to develop a greater understanding of the “post-literate culture” in which we live (de Castell, 1996) and in particular, this form of entertainment/educational tool, in order to be able to assess its advantages and detriments, and to respond to widely-held but largely unsubstantiated beliefs about videogame play (Hagood, 2000).
The world of new technologies surrounds us and it is males who appear to be both engaged in such activities and also less literate than they used to be. From pre-school age, it is not uncommon for young boys to spend hours playing videogames, trying out new strategies, puzzling their way through engaging and interactive “texts”. Worrying as this may seem to be, scholars have examined boys’ practices with these “texts”, and it has become evident that literacy skills are being learned through new technologies. Recent research (Gee, 2003; Johnson, 2005) presents compelling arguments related to sophisticated learning through engagement with videogames: videogame play can be powerful interactive learning. We believe that engagement with videogames affects perceptions of the world and of one’s place in the world but we do not know how it happens and what the effects are. There is, then, a disconnect between the discourse that suggests that boys are failing in learning through engagement with videogames. There has been little research focused on adolescent boys related to the literacy skills that are being learned by boys through videogame play -- are they actually beneficial and do they aid learning?