Potencialidades de la gamificación en la educación

Abstract

Some research refers to videogames because of their negative effects, as they are responsible for an increase in violence, addiction, sedentary lifestyle, obesity and depression. These studies allude to social and physiological variables and their impact on the psychological. However, from education these effects are recognized, but the need for a more balanced perspective is maintained, which considers not only the possible negative impacts, but also the advantages of using these games, as it is referred to in the study of the University of Costa Rich on the effect of video games on children and adolescents [1]. This means that the importance of the potential benefits of this practice supported on screens must be considered, in part, because the "nature of these games has changed dramatically in the last decade, as videogames increasingly complex, diverse, realistic emerge. and of a social nature, very close to the daily life of the users of said software "(Ferguson and Olson, 2013). A small but important body of research that began to emerge, especially in the last five years, has documented these benefits. This article summarizes the research on the positive effects of video games, focusing on four main fields: cognitive, motivational, emotional and social. Through the integration of positive development perspectives and social psychology, some mechanisms are proposed by which the user of video games can receive psychosocial benefits that will then be implemented in the real world. The objective of this article is to provide sufficient evidence and a theoretical justification to inspire new research programs on the benefits of video games. Finally, it ends with a call to researchers and intervention professionals to test the positive uses of video games and suggest several directions to do so.