Relations Between Videogame Play and 8th-Graders’ Mathematics Achievement

This study explores whether any relationships exist between math performance scores on the Missouri Assessment Plan (MAP), its subscales and time spent playing the child’s favorite videogame given the game’s spatial content and cognitive complexity. Relationships between gender and math scores were also examined. Findings indicate no main effect of time spent playing, spatial content, or level of complexity of games on math performance. However, several math scores interacted with time spent playing one’s favorite video game, such that higher levels of math performance occurred when participants played games high in spatial content at low amounts of time. A similar interaction occurred when examining complexity of the game and time spent playing. The study provides preliminary evidence that it may be important to consider the spatial or complexity content of videogames in addition to time spent playing when addressing the relationship between videogame play and adolescent math performance.