A one-year study conducted in the U.K. by Futurelab has examined the effectiveness of using commercial computer/video games as learning aids in the classroom. The project called "Teaching with Games" started in August 2005 and has had the support of Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Take-Two Interactive and the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE).

The study involved two Ipsos MORI surveys to look at the attitudes of teachers and students towards using games at school, as well as case studies of 12 teachers in four secondary schools using three games: The Sims 2, Knights of Honor and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.

The general finding from the project was that using games in lessons can be "motivating and engaging," and teachers also believe that the games "improve students' computer skills, strategic thinking and problem solving."

"I can definitely see the potential of using games in the classroom. It proved to be a great tool for motivating students and engaging their interest. I would like to use games for teaching in the future if the technical problems could be addressed," commented Claire Gemmell, a teacher at St John's School & Community College in Marlborough. The technical problems she's referring to involved licensing and copy protection issues that prevented some teachers from easily installing the software or running the games on school networks.

Interestingly, the study also found that the teachers don't necessarily need to be game savvy in order to use games in the classroom. "While teachers needed a certain level of familiarity with a game to be able to use it in their teaching, achieving particular educational objectives through the use of the game was more dependent upon a teacher's knowledge of the curriculum with which they were working than it was on their ability with the game," noted Futurelab. Indeed, most teachers (72 percent) don't play games during their leisure time compared with 82 percent of students that said they do play games outside of school, indicating the presence of a generational divide.

Nevertheless, the games were successfully used in both competency-based and traditional content-based curricula, and 59 percent of teachers said that they would want to use games as teaching tools.

"We have long recognized the potential of interactive computer games to stimulate the learning process", said Gerhard Florin, Executive Vice President and General Manager, International Publishing, EA. "The Teaching with Games study in collaboration with Futurelab has shown that commercial computer games have the potential to support education, which has raised the bar for ongoing collaboration between the industry and education sectors. We look forward to continued initiatives to help pave the way for meaningful integration of computer games into school curriculum."

Much more on this study is available for your perusal here.

You may also be interested in our interview with MIT professor Henry Jenkins, who has long been a proponent of the games for learning movement.