Do students want to learn using video games? Users’ opinions about the educational function of video games

Video games have become a valid methodological teaching tool that is highly valued by experts and teachers due to their interactive ability and proximity to young generations. But what do students think about video games? What is the relationship between students and video games? What educational capacities do video games have?

This article examines the main academic arguments on the educational capacities of video games and assumes that higher education students use video games for fun and pleasure rather than for educational purposes. A qualitative methodology based on indepth interviews of a sample of undergraduate students of audiovisual communication, media studies and journalism was used to collect and analyse the discourse models of students regarding their extracurricular relationship with video games.

The data obtained permitted the analysis of items such as “the value of video games as a learning resource at university,” “the utility of video games for developing manual and intellectual abilities,” or “the role of video games in educational motivation,” focusing particularly to the gender of the interviewees. Keywords: video games; education; youth; gamification