Teacher’s Educational Application: Effects of Online Mobile Gaming to CPAC-A‘s SHS

Students’ Academic Performance.

In partial requirement in our research subject

Carl John B. Perote

Japhet T. Repolidon

Jan Frederick Valenton

Judas Javier

Hans Christian Larida

Russian Arendon

Karen Burgos

Eva Jane Esmino

Lory Mae Sorsano

 CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction:

Interacting with mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets) has now become a part of

day to day activities in societies across the world as many different types of activity can now be

engaged in (e.g., gaming, gambling, and social networking). Over the past two decades mobile

gadgets has evolved into an important tool for it has a lot of functions and benefits for a user to

just have one( Lopez-Fernandez , 2018), (Hoffner , Lee and Park 2016).In terms of entertainment

,Smartphone gaming has been one form of popular mobile entertainment engaged in on a variety

of devices, accounting for more than 42% (i.e., 32% for smartphones and 10% for tablets) of the

global games market (i.e., 47% Asia-pacific, 25% North America, 24% Europe, Middle-East and

Africa, and 4% Latin-America)( Newzoo, 2017) We are now at an age where gaming is getting

more and more portable. Although, while we do enjoy gaming on the go with handheld consoles

like the DS, 3DS, PSP, and now Nintendo Switch, these gadgets are hard to be brought around

anywhere you go. This is why most now turn to mobile phone gaming for a truly “portable”

experience. After all, Mobile gaming is becoming even more practical thanks to its continuous

rise. In fact, it’s now the No.1 platform for games, easing out PCs and Consoles. (Estacio, 2018)

Unknown to some people playing games is beneficial in terms of learning. It enables the player’s

mind to be more active, especially those strategy and puzzle games. Furthermore, it helps the

player with their decision making skill in critical situations, especially those adventure and real

time strategy games that keep the players to be alert, active and strategic. Students' learning takes

place unexpectedly, but it’s not without its negative effects with students’ inappropriate usage of

playing online games, they lead themselves in problems of neglecting their schools lessons and

activities affecting their academic performance (Dumrique, Castillo, 2017). “I played the game
for three years now because this is where I found friends who share the same level of interest as I

do. Friends that cannot be seen in-real or at close range like classmates, but friends who can offer

a relationship that could stand the test of time”. This is the statement of a Filipino student after

being caught and scolded by his father playing an online game where he should be in his class. In

online games, you can be you the way you want yourself to be, even if not accepted in society

and in reality. Filipinos are conservative by nature, but through online gaming they can be

liberated as much as they want. Just like coming out from the chains of how society wants them

to be, they now have the access to express themselves. Online games became the breathing space

of Filipinos, not just the youth but everyone who gains internet access. Boredom is one of the

reason. The sun is up, rather than playing basketball, you engage yourself into battle with other

players with awesome sword fights and spell casting. (Why the Filipino Youth is hooked to

Online Gaming, 2008) But to students, according to Skoric, Teo, and Neo (2009), those addicted

to gaming consistently performed negatively in the academic setting, while there was no negative

correlation between times spent playing or engagement and academic performance. Here in

Central Philippine Adventist College - Academy, It is observed that Senior High School Students

here are often engage in mobile games even during class hours. Going as far as challenging their

fellow teachers to also play the game with them instead of having their own classes.

Statement of Problem:

This aims to find out the effects of online games in the academic performances of the Senior

High students and it seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the positive effects in a student’s academic performance after playing online

mobile games?
2. What are the negative effects in a student’s academic performance after playing

online mobile games

3. Do the player of online mobile games spend more time in playing rather doing their

assignments?

4. Based on the results of the study, how can their teacher use the findings of the result

for the benefit of the students’ academic performance

5. Is there an edge to those senior high students who are playing online mobile games?

Hypothesis

That there is negative effects in the academic performance of the senior high students.

Significance of the study

This study is seen to have a value to the following:

CPAC –A Faculties could use the findings of this study to expose themselves into

a new way of thinking and a new personal strategy for them to use to enhance a student’s

learning capacity regarding the effects of Online Mobile Games.

Future researchers could exercise the findings of this study to improve or refine their

related research about the effects of Online Mobile Games because this study will provide

strong information’s regarding the topic mentioned above. Senior High school students

who value their education will see how they can improve or refine their way of learning to

have a successful academic life during their senior high school level.
 Scopes and Limitations

This study focuses on the effects of playing online mobile games to a Central Philippines

Adventist College - Academy senior high school students’ academic performance and

how it can be used as an advantage to a teacher’s teaching strategy. The researchers will

conduct a survey only to CPAC-A’s SHS student’s players and non-players as the

researchers will compare the academic performances of the two with regards their

previous academic performances. One thing that limits the accuracy of our study is the

honesty of our respondents to the survey we’re giving them. Another is our finances in

making a lot of questionnaires to be distributed among the respondents with hundreds of

respondents and a low number of researchers in our group a distribution of needed

finances is a challenge for us. Lastly full group cooperation, a researcher in this group is

frequently absent every meeting and so cannot do the task assigned for him/her because

he doesn’t even know the task to begin with and thus resulting for the remaining

researchers in the group carrying his obligations and squeezing their time and effort into

making this research a success.

 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

• In order to adequately accomplish the research purpose we decided to investigate the

number and nature of the impacts in that online games might have an influence on the

undergraduate students at CPAC-A . To do this we searched for scientific journals,

reports and doctorate papers related to the topic of our study. Related information that we

gathered from the research conducted the findings is presented. Online Gaming: What

Causes Addiction among Adolescent? The aim of the study by Wan and Chiou (2006) on

why adolescents are addicted to online gaming was to investigate the psychological

problems of addicts among adolescents in Taiwan and to discover the motivation, both

conscious and unconscious, of online game addicts. During the research process they

discovered that most of the adolescents they interviewed stated that online gaming had

become the main focus on their lives, and that life would become dark and bleak without

these games. From this point of view we can channel our investigation to focus on why

young people become addicted to online games (Ibid). 10 Further literature reviews in

this area revealed an emotional point of view that aimed at explaining the reason.

According to Diao (2003), everyone needs to express their feelings and thoughts. As

such, when a person cannot express himself or herself adequately he (or she) may get

depressed. Therefore, one way to release this depression or pressure would be through

playing online games, which enables gamers to chat and play with other friends and

players on the internet. Another explanation of why young people become addicted to the

internet was proposed in that they were trying to avoid societal pressure. According to

Diao (2003), some young people are naturally too shy to talk to strangers face to face in

reality, but when surfing the Internet or playing online games, they can be whoever they
want to be. As such, they can chat with the people they met online without feeling any of

the regular social pressures that come with physical meetings. (Ibid) Addiction:

Symptoms and Evaluation Internet addiction is a relatively new phenomenon in which

social workers and psychologists are unaware of and are thus unprepared to treat at

present. Mu (2006) points out that some of the main symptoms of Internet and online

game addictions, including the decrease in social friend network and face-to-face

interactions with others, become infrequent while the member of friends in the virtual

world exponentially increases. Ultimately, the psychokinesis becomes weaker and

weaker over time. This means that after a long time of playing online games, the players

begin to realize the dangers of online gaming. At this point players generally try to play

less as they try to orient themselves back to the demands of society. However this is

mostly unsuccessful as it almost always ends up failing. Zhang (2007) and Zhuo (2007),

who also researched on the same topic, reported different results on the online game

addiction and the finding supported the same symptoms. With regards to undergraduate

students who were addicted to the Internet or online games, Zhang indicated that most of

these students had bad grades in their universities. Moreover, Zhuo (2007) stated that the

physical symptoms of Internet and online 11 game addictions were cervical spondylosis,

neurasthenia and insomnia. Cervical spondylosis, a fairly common symptom of many

MMOG players, is essentially a spinal injury which results from keeping the same sitting

position for hours while playing games. This situation is more often than not leads to

injuries to the cervical vertebra on the spinal cord. Neurasthenia on the other hand is a

neurological disorder that results from when players engage in hours and hours of game

playing with no virtually sleep intervals in between. Even though players may end up
playing games for a long time before going to sleep, their brains still keep running and

experiencing phantom excitement from playing games even when they are asleep. This

causes sleep sensitivity and disorders which induce addicted players to wake up several

times during the night and as such this leads them suffering from insomnia which can

cause mental anxiety and eventually result in nervous breakdowns and general tiredness.

Once the nature of physical and mental symptoms that manifest in MMOG addicts had

been determined, we perused in various literatures on this topic to discover the ways

through these addiction could be evaluated. One of the useful information sources was

obtained from Young (1999), who conducted a study aimed at enabling social workers to

better understand, detect and treat Internet addiction. The research by Young focused on

the complications that precede an Internet addiction diagnosis. With regards to this

research it is relevant in determining the criterion through which to evaluate our

interviewees. It would help us to determine whether the individuals were addicted to

online games or not. To create a more holistic point of view this thesis also aims to

identify the negative consequences associated with using the Internet and the ways to

assess and identify the reasons causing the onset of pathological Internet use. To facilitate

this, we reviewed existing research findings from Hall and Parsons (2001), whose work

offers a framework for working with individuals who have presented some common

symptoms associated with Internet Behavior Dependence (IBD). In their article, these

two authors introduced a working definition for IBD, an overview of IBD prevalence 12

rates as well as demographic profiles. They also presented reviews of IBD assessment

criteria and treatment considerations. Furthermore, we drew some additional inspiration

from a different diagnostic method based on DSM-IV criteria associated with

pathological gaming. Unlike the latter this definition narrows down the criteria for

identification of online game addicts by requiring that individuals should meet five of

eight criteria for Internet addiction in order to be confirmed as an addict. Distinguishing

and High Engagement in the Context of Online Game Playing Charlton and Danforth

(2007) considered the distinctions between core and external standards for behavioral

addictions as they applied in the specific area of Massive Multiplayer Online Game

playing. According to Brian and Wiemer-Hastings (2005) through DSM-IV, online

gaming addiction has been identified by an actual diagnosis, in which most researchers

rely on their definition for addiction as the guidance of this document. On the other hand,

Kimberly and Young (2007) identified and referred to Internet addiction as a new and

often unrecognized clinical disorder that impacts the ability of a user to control Internet

use to the extent in that it can cause relational, occupational, health and social problems.

Syracuse University (2007) reported that being addicted to games may lead to a

decreased sleep, interference with the demands of society life including socializing and

academic work. In addition, Bowman (2004) claimed that Internet addiction should not

be mixed with other definitions of addiction that involve neurological or biological

explanations for what addiction is. He also said that Internet addiction should be viewed

as “a process addiction, which is conceptually different than a substance addiction and

should focus more on mediating and moderating processes between media use and

corresponding effects like addiction” (Bowman, 2004, p. 114). Despite the fact that it has

yet to be officially recognized as a disorder according to Young (2007), many universities

and hospital clinics have set up outpatient clinics, programs and campus support groups

to help those who are addicted to the Internet. 13 Moreover, one interesting thing in this
thesis is that these facts tell us that playing a lot is not the same as being a pathological

gamer -- the gaming must be causing problems for the individual to be considered as a

pathological condition, which can help us to diagnose whether the interviewees are

addicted to online games or not. Iowa State University (2011) has found further evidence

in which video game addiction exists globally, and is identified as what the risk factors

were for becoming pathological gamers. In addition, it provided the percentage of

pathological gamers among the youth in many countries.

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