Playing videogames can help you improve your job if you do your training using them, according to a new study published by the University of Colorado Business School.
According to the study, people who trained at their job using videogames absorbed and remembered their training better than those who didn’t use videogames to train. The full results will be published in a future issue of the Personnel Psychology journal.
People who trained using videogames for the study, showed an 11% improvement in their grasp of the facts over those who didn’t train using videogames, showed 14% increase in their knowledge of job skills, and retained information 9% better than those in the comparison groups who didn’t train using videogames.
However, even though the numbers are positive, University of Colorado Assistant Professor of Management Traci Sitzmann cautions that 16% of the training games were “too passive”, found that people learned better when the games were paired with further instruction both before and after playing, and found that employees learned better when they themselves were “intrinsically motivated” and allowed to come back to the game later to master associated skills.
“Remember the video game is a tool and not a substitute for training,” she said in a statement. “But if you can engage your employee with the video game, you will likely get a well-trained worker.”
Game-based training and education have been a large part of the growing so-called “Serious Games” movement in recent years, and were the focus of a London conference earlier this year. Employers from Cold Stone Creamery to the U.S. Department of Defense have used games in their training for years as a way to engage and motivate learning, so says gamasutra.
Sitzmann’s study gathered together data from 65 previous studies of training methods, which looked at nearly 6,500 trainees altogether.
I think this is pretty interesting. It’s always been my thought that games help people learn better than say, reading from a book. This is why even back in the 80’s, elementary school kids were taught at times with PC games like Math Muncher or Oregon Trail and the like, and why kids are more engaged when learning is made fun or in the style of a game. Likewise, I think it still applies to adults in the work place nowadays.