Causal relationships between video game use

and school maladjustment

 

Fumika Kimura and Akira Sakamoto

 Ochanomizu University, JAPAN

 

ABSTRACT

A panel study of 438 elementary school students (235 boys, 138 girls, and 20 unknown) was conducted to examine causal relationships between their video game use and school maladjustment.  Results showed two findings.  First, video game use increased 乪hate for school乫 and decreased乪need for learning乫.  The second finding was that 乪hate for school乫 increased video game use.  This indicates that the relationships between video games and 乪school hate乫 would be bi-directional.

 

INTORODUCTION

Nowadays years, there are a lot of students who do not go to school in Japan.  They are called乪school maladjustment乫, and it is pointed out that regardless of going to school or not going to school, the students of school maladjustment have gradually been increasing 乮e.g., Hironaka, 1999; Fujii, 1997乯.  The students who are now going to school but do not want to go to school will stop going to school.  Many reasons for school maladjustment are thought to be plausible.  One of them is the harmful influence of video games.  Video game playing is one of the most popular plays among children.  The diffusion of video game sets is distinct, and there is a popular belief that video game use would have harmful influences on children乫s social personality.  This, video game use might prevent children from interacting with real others, and therefore lead children to socially maladjusted personality.  This belief makes people think that the relationships of students who play video games with classmates will become worse, and at last, they will go to school maladjustment.

Some studies have already been conducted for the problem that video game use would have harmful influences on children乫s social personality (e.g., Lin & Lepper, 1986; Sakamoto, 1994).  Some of them show that this influence is not always true (Kimura & Sakamto, 2000a; Kimura et al. 1999 ).  The studies that examined causal relationship between video game use and school maladjustment do not always support the harmful influences (Kimura & Sakamoto, 2000b).  But these studies have not examine what aspects of school maladjustment are.  In this study, we make this clear.

Thus, we conducted a panel study to examine causal relationships between video game use and various aspects of school maladjustment.  If a panel study is conducted, in general causation can be estimated to some degree (Finkel, 1995).

 

METHOD
Subjects
Four hundred and thirty-eitht fifth and sixth grade students of a public elementary school (235 boys, 138 girls, and 20 unknown) participated in a two-wave panel study.  A questionnaire survey was conducted twice for the same subjects at the interval of three months (July 1999 and October 1999).

Questionnaire

Video game Use   We measured the frequencies of subject乫s use of video games.  We asked the number of days per week where the subjects used video games, and how long the subjects used video games in weekdays and weekend, respectively.  Then, we calculated hours per week where subjects use video games.

School Maladjustment Variables.丂嘆Adjustment Scale for School Environment 嘦 (ASE嘦; 14 items; Koizumi, 1995), 嘇An inventory in which unwillingness to attend school is assessed (12 items; Furuichi, 1991).  As for both of, the higher the score is, the more maladjusted the subjects are.

 

RESULTS and DISCUSSION

A factor analysis, in which the principal factor method and varimax rotation method were used, divided  the concept of school maladjustment into five factors.  They were 嘆 乪hate for school乫 (兛=.92), 嘇 乪negative relationships with classmates乫 (兛=.73), 嘊 乪positive relationships with classmates乫 (兛=.60), 嘋 乪indifferences to their own schools乫 (兛=.69), and 嘍 乪low motivation for learning乫 (兛=.64).  Items of 乪negative relationships with classmates乫 are the reversal items of 乪positive relationships with classmates乫. The reason why these factors were divided can be regarded as being due to the subjects, response sets.  We therefore combined these two factors into one factor.

The relationships between the scores of these four factors and the frequency of video game use were analyzed using the structural equation modeling (An analysis model is shown in Fig. 1).

Estimation of Causation between Video Game Use and School Maladjustment

Table 1 shows standardized regression weights.  Two findings were obtained.  First, video game use increased 乪hate for school乫 and 乪low motivation for learning乫.  It was shown that video game use did not have influences on the students乫 relationships with classmates, but had harmful influences on 乪hate for school乫 and 乪low motivation for learning乫.  乪Hate for school乫 means vague unwillingness to attend school.  This result may be because elementary school students have greater attraction for video game use than for their school life.

The second finding was that 乪hate for school乫 increased video game use.  As for 乪hate for school乫, video game use was both a cause and an effect.  This indicates that the relationships between video games and 乪hate for school乫 would be bi-directional.

In this study, we revealed that video game use did not influence on children乫s relationships with their friends.  Video game use increased vague unwillingness to attend school, but did not have influences on the students乫 relationships with classmates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Fig. 1  The structural equation model

 

 

Table1  Standardized regression weights

 

 

Hate for school

Relationships with classmates

Indifferences in their own schools

Low motivation for learning

 

Video game use

仺school

maladjustment

.09*

.00

-.04

.08*

 

School maladjustment

仺videogame use

.10**

.07侕

.03

.07

  **p<.01丆 *p<.05丆 侕p<.10

 

 

REFERENCES

Hironaka, H. 1999  Futoko-mondai heno taio [Treatment to the students who do not go to school]. In K. Ogawa and M. Murayama (Ed.), Gakko no shinririnsho. [Clinical psychology of schools.] Tokyo: Kaneko-shobo. Pp. 30-71. (In Japanese.)

Finkel, S. E. (1995).  Causal analysis with panel data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fujii, Y. 1997  Problems troubling classrooms of modern schools: A view of school stress. Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 45, 228-237.

Furuichi, Y., 1991  Factors contributing to children乫s unwillingness to attend school. Japanese Journal of Counseling Science, 24 (2), 123-127.

Kimura, F., & Sakamoto, A. 2000a  An analysis for longitudinal data concerning video game use and social adjustment. The Japanese Journal of Personality, 8 (2), 130-132

Kimura, F., & Sakamoto, A. 2000b  Causal relationship between video game use and school maladjustment: Moderated effects of personality variable. Japan Society of Personality Psychology 11th Annual Confference. (In Japanese.)

Kimura, F., Sakamoto, A., Sagara, J., Sakamoto, K., & Inaba, T. 1999  Video game use and social personality: A panel study of male students. 11th Annual American Psychological Society Convention, Denver, 95.

Koizumi, R., 1995  Children乫s perceived quality of school life in fifth through ninth grades. Bulletin of Fukuoka Educatinal University, 44, 295-303.

Lin, S., & Lepper, M. R. 1987  Correlates of children乫s usage of videogames and computers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 17, 72-93.

Sakamoto, A. 1994  Video game use and the development of sociocognitive abilities in children: Three surveys of elementary school students. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 21-42.

 

 

 

 


KIMURA, Fumika

Dept. of Developmental and Clinical Studies,

Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences,

Ochanomizu University

2-1-1, Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku,

Tokyo, 112-8610

JAPAN

E-mail: fumica@ma3.justnet.ne.jp