3 ms·

They aren't asking how a player felt about Portal or Luminosity. It looks like they did some standardized tests after they played the respective games.

mikey_p 7y ago
Yes, but parent is arguing that the feeling could be what is affecting the test results more than any cognitive abilities or enhancements as a result of playing the game. I.e. if you "won" the Lumosity games (which normally get harder until you fail) and "lost" at Portal, is the effect the same or is it reversed? A very valid question indeed.
duxup 7y ago
How they feel could very well matter. I forget the behavior / explanation but if you take two groups and have one successfully complete tasks, and another unsuccessfully, and then test them both you'll find the folks who just previous to the test successfully completed tasks will do better than those who were unsuccessful.
sdinsn 7y ago
> I know that successfully completing a task(s) just before a test will result in better performance on tests From his comment
hcs 7y ago
They did ask how the players felt, because the GP has a good point, and included it in the analysis: "3.4.3. Enjoyment item After participants in each condition finished their 8 h of gameplay and before the posttest battery of tests was administered, we presented an item to players concerning their enjoyment of the assigned game. This was a single self-reported response to the statement: “I enjoyed playing (Portal 2 or Lumosity).” The 5-point Likert scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)." "The measures were controlled for player enjoyment in all models (when significant) to rule out any effect enjoyment might have in learning gains. That is, based on participants' responses to the statement about enjoying their assigned game, for Portal 2 participants, enjoyment M = 4.32; SD = 0.93, while for the Lumosity participants, M = 3.50; SD = 1.05. The difference between the two groups' enjoyment is significant, with a strong advantage for the Portal 2 group: F(1,73) = 12.69; p < .001. Cohen's d = .83, which is a large effect size." "Enjoyment was a significant covariate in the VSNA ANCOVA model"

mikey_p 7y ago

Yes, but parent is arguing that the feeling could be what is affecting the test results more than any cognitive abilities or enhancements as a result of playing the game. I.e. if you "won" the Lumosity games (which normally get harder until you fail) and "lost" at Portal, is the effect the same or is it reversed? A very valid question indeed.

duxup 7y ago

How they feel could very well matter. I forget the behavior / explanation but if you take two groups and have one successfully complete tasks, and another unsuccessfully, and then test them both you'll find the folks who just previous to the test successfully completed tasks will do better than those who were unsuccessful.

sdinsn 7y ago

> I know that successfully completing a task(s) just before a test will result in better performance on tests From his comment

hcs 7y ago

They did ask how the players felt, because the GP has a good point, and included it in the analysis: "3.4.3. Enjoyment item After participants in each condition finished their 8 h of gameplay and before the posttest battery of tests was administered, we presented an item to players concerning their enjoyment of the assigned game. This was a single self-reported response to the statement: “I enjoyed playing (Portal 2 or Lumosity).” The 5-point Likert scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)." "The measures were controlled for player enjoyment in all models (when significant) to rule out any effect enjoyment might have in learning gains. That is, based on participants' responses to the statement about enjoying their assigned game, for Portal 2 participants, enjoyment M = 4.32; SD = 0.93, while for the Lumosity participants, M = 3.50; SD = 1.05. The difference between the two groups' enjoyment is significant, with a strong advantage for the Portal 2 group: F(1,73) = 12.69; p < .001. Cohen's d = .83, which is a large effect size." "Enjoyment was a significant covariate in the VSNA ANCOVA model"