The role of computer games in educational failure of high school students in Tehran

Education of children is one of the most important concerns of our country's families today. This concern is mostly due to the future dependence of children on their level of success in education, although these concerns are a promising and pleasant point for the promotion and advancement of their children and the education system as a whole. In another form, it provides a kind of anxiety and worry for families and students as if a person completes the study process and his way to university is difficult, they can no longer be a successful person and an effective citizen. Socially, one of the problems of educational systems in any country is academic failure; an efficient educational system with the lowest drop and the highest efficiency. When it comes to academic failure, it includes various aspects of failure such as complete absenteeism, early school leaving, repetition of the basic level, and the low quality of students' education with which is associated with. The computer and the Internet is one of the means of communication in the modern age that has been used by humans. This device has caused speed and accuracy in work and the expansion of communication, in a way that has turned the planet into a global village. And its spread has caused problems in communities. One of these problems is the drop in education among students. The present study aims to identify the role of computer games and educational failure of high-school students of Tehran.

Method and Materials: 

The research method is correlational and survey data collection method has been used. The statistical population of the study includes 27535 Tehran’s high-school students (Region 3). The sample size was estimated to be 385 by Cochran formula, selected by multi-staged cluster sampling method The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. Face validity and content validity were confirmed by some experts and supervisors. In addition, its reliability based on Cronbach’s alpha for social class was .80, for Internet & game questionnaire was .71 and for educational failure questionnaire was .72. Data were analyzed by SPSS software, quantitative and descriptive statistics, multiple Pearson correlation test, T-test, and One Way Analysis of Variance.

The results show that 88% of students have access to the Internet. Their primary access means include mobile phones and the average use of the Internet is 4 hours and 23 minutes. 41% play computer games, 65% use mobile phones and 17% use PlayStation to play games. The daily average of playing computer games is 2 hours and 55 minutes. From among the games, war games have been allocated the highest frequency.

The results showed that there is a significant relationship between computer games, types of computer games, Internet access, gender, age, major, social class and educational failure of students. What is certain is that today the role of computers in human life is undeniable and has taken up a large part of human time in life and computer games have become a ring of entertainment for people of this era, especially students. In recent years, we have witnessed the entry of many computer games into the market, which in leisure and entertainment, is the companion of different segments of society from childhood to adulthood, both students and non-students. In addition to the positive effects that the computer has on the transmission of information and familiarity with the world around students and the performance of daily life, its excessive use can have negative consequences such as academic failure, that was the result of this study.