Video gaming and digital competence among elementary school students

ABSTRACT

Engagement with video games can potentially advance student digital competence however, there is a digital skills gap by the time young people progress into adolescence. This current research explores how elementary school students’ digital self-efficacy might relate to experiences in video game environments to influence perceptions of digital competence. We examine the differential impact of sex, self-efficacy, and socioeconomic status (SES) on 7–10-year-old students’ (N = 613) perceptions of video gaming and their digital skills. Analysis revealed the unexpected finding that SES was inversely related to enjoyment for gaming and digital technology, with students in the lower-SES category responding more positively compared to students in higher SES categories. As expected, boys self-reported digital skills higher than girls across all SES categories. We argue for the use of gaming pedagogies to support learning in classrooms that accounts for nuances in students’ digital self-efficacy moderated by gender and SES.

KEYWORDS:

• Video games
• digital skills
• gender
• disadvantage
• technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Australian Research Council grant awarded to Associate Professor Laura Scholes [DE170100990]. The views herein are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding body.