Study: HopeLab’s Re-Mission Game Is Effective

The serious gaming community was buzzing today about the publication of results from a major study in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ official journal, showing that HopeLab’s cancer education and encouragement game, Re-Mission, is effective in accomplishing its objectives.

A total of 375 subjects, ages 13-29, were recruited from 34 academic medical centers in North America and Australia in 2004-05. Subjects were screened by language (if they couldn’t communicate in one of the languages Re-Mission uses (English, French, & Spanish), they were screened out), ability to follow directions (if they ignored screeners’ directions, they were screened out), and, “history of seizures as a result of photosensitivity,” (if the flashing lights of the videogame bothered them, they were screened out).

Subjects played the game at least one hour per week for three months. The control group (n = 178 ) played, “A PC version of Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb … because the play structure and controller interface closely resembled that of Re-Mission.” All subjects were given a computer. Control group subjects received a computer with only the Indiana Jones game while the experimental group subjects’ computers had both the Indiana Jones game and Re-Mission.

Here is the conclusion:

The video-game intervention [Re-Mission] significantly improved treatment adherence and indicators of cancer-related self-efficacy and knowledge in adolescents and young adults who were undergoing cancer therapy. The findings support current efforts to develop effective video-game interventions for education and training in health care.

“Treatment adherence” means subjects took their medication. Therefore, the study shows an increased willingness to continue chemo or other treatments by young cancer patients when offered the videogame intervention.

The pilot study took place in San Antonio, so local coverage was heavy. Visit the San Antonio Business Journal and WOAI for more details.

Study: Videogames Disrupt Sleep, Provide Emotional Catalysts for Learning

Researchers over at Sport University, Cologne (Germany) published an article this month in Pediatrics that detailed research on eleven boys, age 12-14, who were exposed to either television or videogames in an experiment. The boys were divided into two groups for a study lasting two days. The groups either played a racing game for an hour, or watched an action movie for two to three hours, then went to bed.

Overnight sleep tests along with pre and post visual and verbal memory tests indicated that boys playing the videogame took longer to fall asleep, and spent less time in deep sleep. Videogame players were more highly aroused than movie watchers, and seemed to show stronger emotional experiences with the games.

Movies were not blameless, either. In the movie group, boys slept less (the movies lasted longer than the hour allotted for games), and the movies did not seem to affect memory performance.

On the other hand, the game playing group experienced less “slow wave” sleep, and spent more time in “non-REM” sleep. Thus, their sleep was longer but less satisfactory as sleep patterns were disrupted. Verbal memory performance also suffered a hit in the game playing group.

The researchers concluded succinctly: “The results suggest that television and computer game exposure affect children’s sleep and deteriorate verbal cognitive performance, which supports the hypothesis of the negative influence of media consumption on children’s sleep, learning, and memory.”

Both television watching and videogame playing affected children’s sleep negatively, but videogames were portrayed as having an even more negative effect. Certainly, this seems like a “duh” statement. Who wouldn’t be jazzed after going through MC in WoW and perhaps suffer some sleep loss after a successful raid? Also, it should be noted the group size and study duration were small and short, respectively.

Nonetheless, this adds another drop in the bucket for educational game research. In particular, the researchers noted yet more evidence for a cognitive link with emotions and learning … a strongpoint for good educational games. Alas, from the paucity of information about the study online, I can’t tell how much the researchers fleshed out this idea.

The most negative way to portray the study’s findings in the media seem to center around sleep deficiencies caused by videogames. I think a more interesting angle is the level of emotional and intellectual stimulation caused by videogames versus passive movie watching. Of the two, videogames would seem to come out on top for educational purposes if the issue is framed that way.

References:
Dworak, M., DiplSportwiss, Schierl, T., Bruns, T., & Strüder, H. K. (2007, November). Impact of singular excessive computer game and television exposure on sleep patterns and memory performance of school-aged children. Pediatrics 120(5). 978-985.

Reuters. (2007, November 10). Video games disrupt teenagers’ sleep, researchers find. The Vancouver Sun. [Online]. Available: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?
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