The Challenges of Gaming
While the use of digital gaming to support learning in an educational setting is increasingly accepted, questions surrounding the effectiveness and potential consequences of gaming in education still remain. Peter Tromba (2013) explains that negative views continue to affect implementation in many schools as some educators continue to believe that game-based strategies have a negative impact on student achievement and "video games are commonly understood in only a pejorative sense among many career educators, especially those furthest from the student population" (p. 21).
Nada Saleh, Edmond Prakah, & Rob Manton (2014) discuss four primary barriers that can significantly affect an educator's ability or willingness to implement a games-based approach into their classroom:
1. Time and effort
2. Preparation
3. Dissemination
4. Assessment or tracking
As more schools and schools districts integrate digital gaming into classrooms, the primary barriers listed above are important to consider. There is a significant time commitment required by educators to ensure sufficient understanding not only of game content and whether it fits with the prescribed learning outcomes and ability levels of their students, but educators must themselves develop the skills required to understand and play the game(s) (Saleh, Prakah, & Manton, 2014). Similarly, the perspectives and technological skill levels of educators are important to consider. If educators have preconceived negative opinions toward gaming, or if new technologies have not been introduced or taught adequately, it may affect the implementation of gaming, and persistence of the approach in the classroom. In many cases, there is a lack of specific curriculum related to gaming which leads to difficulty balancing content, as well as a potentially significant monetary cost to schools and school districts (Saleh, Prakah, & Manton, 2014).
From the perspective of children and adolescents, gaming in the classroom may not always be the engaging and motivating experience that educators hope for. For example, students may not have as much interest in educational games as they have in the commercial games they play at home. "In general, children believe that educational games pale in comparison to the production quality of commercial games (Mitchell & Savill-Smith, 2004" (as referenced by Sherry, 2013, p. 13). In addition to this, students must be comfortable using the digital technologies required to support gaming in the classroom. "Comfort" can refer to the actual technological skills students possess or their ability to learn those skills, but also to social challenges that may present themselves in an online learning community. Educators must work to ensure a safe, positive learning environment for all students.
A final consideration is the fact that educators must be wary of the need for educational versions of commercial games to be condensed to accommodate the time constraints of the classroom as instructional hours are limited. "Many educational games have assimilated game features into the constraints of the school day, becoming 20-minute activities with associated worksheets that lack a multiplayer continuity and the extended engagement characteristic of games played for purely entertainment value. Such adaptations may mask the potential learning benefits of video games" (Young et al., 2012, p. 80).