Researchers Study Gamers to Boost Learning

Indiana University School of Education researchers are studying the decision-making skills of middle school student gamers in an effort to improve education. They found that while traditional education is built around students avoiding failure, gamers use failure as the MAIN SOURCE OF LEARNING. In traditional education, information is provided in advance, and students are to study it in an effort to avoid failure when given tasks, such as homework and tests. Mastering video games, on the other hand, involves trial and error. Players jump right in and start failing right away on tasks, and learn from those failures. Researchers believe education could be improved by giving students tasks they can fail at, but learn from (similar to the Montessori approach to learning).