Abstract
Recent research suggests that video games and social media may influence youths’ lives in ways that deserve attention from psychologists, mathematics educators, and learning scientists. For example, positive effects on engagement, which can increase probability of mathematics proficiency, have been reported in the literature. We examine this issue with emphasis on the effects of video game play on youth learning and engagement; what features, attributes, and mechanisms of video games have been identified as most salient for these factors; and how scholarship in the domain might design more rigorous studies to determine the effects of video game play on learning, achievement, and engagement. We include a description of our work developing educational games for middle school youth struggling to become algebra-ready.
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