An Empirical Analysis of Children's Thinking and Learning in a Computer Game Context

This study explored ways to analyse gains in children's cognitive skills through playing computer games. Eighty-seven children aged from 7 to 10 years participated in a computer game called 'Find the Flamingo', one of Safari Search series (O'Brien, 1985). The game consisted of a set of rules, given with affirmative and negative if-then statements. Development, individual differences and learning were found in children's inferential game play. It was also found that there were already different play patterns from the beginning of the games between the good problem solvers and the random guessers. Discussions were made on the methods for analysis of computer game activity.