Results on Vietnamese Students

Question 1: What are the game playing habits of Vietnamese students?

There were 100 Vietnamese respondents involved in the survey which include 40 male students and 60 female students with mean age 20.87 years old. Of 100 participants, there were 73 people claimed that they are computer game players and 27 people said they do not play computer games. The gender distribution of gamers is relatively equal with 39 male players and 34 female players. In contrary, there was only 1 out of 40 male participants said that he does not play computer games while there were 26 out of 60 female participants claimed that they are non-gamers. Thus, it can be said that the percentage of male students who play computer games is much higher than that of female students. Results from the study also show a fact that Vietnamese game players are more attracted to multi-players games than single-player games with 48 out of 73 gamers said that they prefer multi-players games. The average playing time of Vietnamese gamers is 8.17 hours a week. Regarding the level of study in university, there were 35 sophomores, 25 juniors, 24 seniors and 16 freshmen participating in the survey.

Question 2: What are the motivations to play computer game of Vietnamese students?

In order to understand the gamers’ gaming motivation, a questionnaire comprised of 17 factors was distributed. Chart 1 shows the means comparison in the motivation of players.

Chart 1: Gaming motivations of Vietnamese students

Six highest ranking motivating factors are relaxation (mean = 3.91), pleasure (mean = 3.83), stress relieving (mean = 3.73), exciting (mean = 3.73), cooperation (mean = 3.63) and feeling good (mean = 3.63). Fantasy, filling leisure time and avoidance of other activities are three least important motivations to respondents. This result indicates that Vietnamese players seem to consider computer games as an exciting way to help them relax and socializing with others. The gender difference is also shown in chart 1. Even though the results showed that male respondents generally displayed higher motivation than their female counterparts, there were only two significant differences were found using One-way ANOVA analysis are competition (F[1,71] = 4.15, p ≤ 0.05) and tension release (F[1,71] = 8.5, p ≤ 0.05). This result suggested that the gap in the gaming motivation between two genders is not clear in comparison to the findings in the previous study of Hainey et al. (2013).

Regarding factors stimulating gamers to keep playing a computer games when the difficulty is increasing, the reasons given by Vietnamese students generally fell into three categories: (1) challenging themselves; (2) satisfying curiosity and (3) having leisure. Some of the comments are listed below:

- “I want to challenge myself and overcome that challenge”

3.2

- “I want to challenge myself and overcome that challenge”

- “I want to challenge myself and overcome that challenge”

Question 3: What are the reasons for using computer games in a higher education environment of Vietnamese students?

Both players and non-players were asked to rate the importance of ten different reasons for using computer game in Higher Education. Chart 2 showed the five highest ranked reasons given by Vietnamese students.

Chart 2: Reasons for using computer games in a higher education environment of Vietnamese students split by gender

The top 5 reasons are relaxation (mean = 3.91), pleasure (mean = 3.8), cooperation (mean = 3.64), curiosity (mean = 3.48) and competition (mean=3.32). It seems that the main motives for Vietnamese students to use computer games in learning in Higher Education is to have a more relaxed time in studying as relaxation and pleasure are two highest ranked reasons. However, there is a significant difference in comparison with the findings for gamers on motivation to play game where game players generally considers computer games as a way to relaxation. It seems that when using computer games for study, respondents (including both gamers and non-gamers) not only value computer games as a way to get relaxed but also as an environment where they can challenge themselves and satisfy their

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Relax Pleasure Cooperation Curiosity Challenge

Male Female General

curiosity. Using One-way ANOVA analysis, male and female respondents display similar opinion toward the use of computer games in higher education as no significant difference were found on every reason except the factor competition (F[1,98] = 6.4, p ≤ 0.013). This result indicates that male respondents tend to value competition factor higher than female respondents even when using computer games in higher education environment. When respondents were divided into separate groups of gamers and non-gamers to compare their reasons for using computer games in higher education, the gamers group showed higher results in 7 out of 10 reasons while non-gamers seemed to value three reasons of recognition, sense of control and fantasy more than gamers (see Chart 3).

Chart 3: Reasons for using computer games in a higher education environment of Vietnamese students split by gaming experience

However, there is only one significant difference between two group was found which is the sense of control (F[1,98] = 4.49, p ≤ 0.05) using One-way ANOVA analysis. It can be said that the experience with computer games seems to have little influence on the opinion upon educational games among Vietnamese students.

In response to the question “Do you believe computer games can be used in a Higher Education environment?”, the respondents generally displayed their support to this idea with 73 students answered “Yes” in contrast to 27 students who expressed their objection toward

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Relax Pleasure Cooperation Curiosity Challenge

Gamers Non-gamers General

the idea of using computer games in Higher Education. For the students supporting the idea, the reasons they gave generally fall into three categories: (1) it is interesting to use

educational game; (2) educational games can make studying more fun and relaxed; and (3) educational games have learning benefits. Some of the reasons are listed as the following:

- “Computer games make our brain excited so educational game should have the same effect”

- “I think it helps reducing stress from studying”

- “It make knowledge become more realistic”

For those who do not support the idea, their reasons could be put into three general categories including: (1) playing game at schools is a waste of time; (2) educational game may be a distraction; (3) computer games are not made for educational purpose and do not bring learning benefit to learners. Below are some of their reasons:

- “Silly, it is just a waste of time for studying”

- “If students are allowed to play games at schools, certainly they will be distracted to play instead of studying”

- “I do not believe as most of the computer games currently are made for entertainment purpose, and only a few games can bring benefits to the higher education

environment”

Furthermore, when being asked to name the computer games that they had used in the higher education environment before, Vietnamese students either named only commercial games made for entertainment purpose or left a blank answer. Thus, it can be said that Vietnamese students in Trade Union University have not used any educational game before.

Question 4: What are the general attitudes toward playing computer games of Vietnamese students?

All participants were also asked for their attitudes toward computer games by answering how agreed they are on 10 statements. Generally, Vietnamese respondents

expressed positive attitudes toward computer games while they seem to disagree that playing games are a waste of time or a lonely activity. Specifically, respondents found games as an interesting and sociable activity as well as a chance to develop useful skills.

Chart 4: General attitude toward playing computer games of Vietnamese students split by gender

The claim is supported by the result from chart 4 where four highest ranking attitudes are (1) sociable, (2) enjoyable, (3) interesting and (4) useful for developing skills. This result seems to be consistent with results from the previous tests on motivations to play game and reasons to use game in higher education of Vietnamese students. According to these two tests, computer games are generally considered as a way to relax, cooperate with other people, satisfy curiosity and challenge oneself. The significant differences of the attitudes between two genders were found at 3 items: “Playing games is interesting” (F[1,98] = 7.45, p

≤ 0.05), “Playing games is a worthwhile activity” (F[1,98] = 4.22, p ≤ 0.05), “Playing games is exciting” ( F[1,98] = 6.17, p ≤ 0.05).

This result indicated that both genders generally share the same opinion and attitudes toward computer game and the idea of applying game-based learning approach in Higher Education environment. However, when the respondents were divided into two groups of game players and non-players, results indicated that gamers displayed more positive attitudes toward playing games than non-gamers on every attribute (see Chart 5).

Chart 5: General attitude toward playing computer games of Vietnamese students split by gaming experience

The gamers not only gave higher score in all positive attitudes such as “Playing game is a sociable activity” or “Playing games is exciting” but also they less agreed with the negative opinions toward playing computer games such as “Playing game is a waste of time”

or “Playing games is a lonely activity”. Using One-way ANOVA analysis, significant differences were found in all items with the exception of computer games being a time consuming activity. The significant differences values were shown in Table 2:

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Table 2: Significant differences in attitude toward playing computer games between Vietnamese gamers and non-gamers

ANOVA

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Sociable Between Groups 3.453 1 3.453 4.617 .034

Within Groups 73.297 98 .748

Total 76.750 99

When the bivariate correlation analysis was run to find out whether there is correlation between the amount of playing time of gamer group and their attitude toward playing computer games, the result showed that the correlation was found at one item:

“Playing game is a worthwhile activity” (see Appendix D).

Waste of Time Between Groups 6.969 1 6.969 8.748 .004

In response to the question “What types of skills do you think can be obtained from computer games that would be relevant to Higher Education?” The Vietnamese students gave highest ranking to three skills including creativity, collaboration/teamwork and

analyzing/classifying.