Enriched Esports: The Design and Four-Year Examination of a School-Affiliated Competitive Videogame Program for Youth

This paper describes the design and investigation of a high-school-affiliated esports program based on an enrichment learning model. In it, the authors detail the connections between esports and learning, self-reported impacts of the program and demographic differences among them, students' attitudes toward program features, and equity in results across demographic groups. Several methods over four years were used to document and evaluate the program including observational fieldwork, an online retrospective posttest survey, and a modified instrument given in an alternative one-sample pretest-posttest design. Authors find compelling evidence that an enrichment approach to youth esports yields positive outcomes in communication, social-emotional skills, and school affiliation. There are also indications that this approach temporarily staved off an overall downward trend in key variables including STEM interest, self-regulation, attendance, and GPA, during the COVID-19 global pandemic.