Videogames and spatial skills: An exploratory study

Abstract

Fifty-eight undergraduate and graduate students participated in an exploratory study which examined the relationship between videogames, spatial cognitive skills, and eye-hand coordination. Scores on two videogames were compared with subjects' scores on three standardized spatial skills tests and on one test of eye-hand coordination. The subjects were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (which was provided with five hours of videogame practice) or the control group (which was provided with no videogame practice). The scores on the two videogames were found to be correlated with different spatial test scores. Significant sex and age differences were also found on several of the measures. The males scored higher than the females on spatial orientation, visualization, and the baseline measures on one of the videogames, while the females scored higher than the males on the test of eye-hand coordination. The age of the subjects was found to be negatively correlated with scores on the videogames and spatial test scores. © 1985 Association for Educational Communications and Technology.