Can Video Game Testing Spark Interest in Computing Among Black Youth?
September 9, 2009
Betsy DiSalvo, Ph.D., candidate in the College of Computing, is working with a group of teenaged African American boys to introduce them to computer science through game testing. (Photo: Rob Felt/Georgia Tech)
Walk into almost any household that includes teenage boys and you'll find one or more video game consoles. Walk into that household past 10PM and you’re likely to find one or more teenage boys playing those video games. Walk into the parents’ bedroom, wake them up and then ask them what they think of their sons playing video games, and most likely they'll tell you it’s a waste of time - before they kick you out of their house. But is it truly a waste of time?
Betsy DiSalvo, doctoral candidate in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, has a hunch that she can use their interest in video games to spur an interest computer science. And since African American males are under-represented not only in the computer industry, but also graduate schools, she and her colleagues have started a game testing group known as Glitch that introduces teenaged African American boys to the gaming industry as game testers for companies such as Electronic Arts, Game Tap and Cartoon Network. They’re finding that more than half of the game testers are now interested in furthering their education in computer science. DiSalvo is presenting her findings next week at the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference in London.
"Research tells us that African American males graduate from college at a lower rate than African American females. We also know that these same youth play video games at a higher rate than white males, so we wondered if we could use this interest in video games that they already have to increase their interest in computer science,” said DiSalvo.
Along with researchers from Tech and Morehouse College, DiSalvo introduced a group of 12 students aged 16-17 to game testing, giving them experience in working in the gaming industry for about 20 hours per week. In addition, the students learned programming skills using Alice, a drag and drop programming language. They also learned how to use Jython to manipulate images in a media computation workshop.
"We found these students’ play practices were very different from those of white youth,” said DiSalvo. “They began playing games at a younger age, they tend to play more often with parents or other family members, they prefer to play competitively with others in the room rather than online, they consider games as an extension of competitive sports and they tend not use cheats, hacks or gaming guides.”
What DiSalvo saw jibes with current research that shows that many young African American males don’t look at games as computation, or something that can be manipulated. Yet many people who go on to have careers in computing say that modifying existing programs, or creating hacks, was how they initially got into the field.
After learning how to game test from Electronic Arts, the students got first-hand experience with computer bugs and helping create games by spending six weeks testing a preproduction site for GameTap. In all they logged close to 1,000 bugs and conducted tests for the sites more than 1,000 games.
They also spent two weeks testing Cartoon Network’s Fusion Fall and Good Egg’s Elf Island. In addition they spent a week testing Polyghost, an iPhone application for Last Legion Games.
"It is a childhood dream job, playing games all day, but you learn it is a lot more than that,” said one of the game testers known as Spock to protect his privacy. “But you know it has been great here and I really think that computer science is something I am looking forward to.”
All in all, DiSalvo is pleased with what the program has been able to teach so far.
"They saw what computer science is on several levels,” said DiSalvo. “First, the workshops showed them they could code. Also being able to be creative by engaging in programming and problem solving motivated a number of students. Others just realized they could work in technology because they were doing game testing work as high school students.”
Throughout the year, DiSalvo will continue working with the same group of testers for eight hours per week. They'll be getting real-world job experiences as well as real-world payment from the game companies.
"All of them were very proud of what they contributed to Game Tap and other games,” said DiSalvo. “They felt like it was real work that had a real impact on the video games that were produced.”
Provided by Georgia Institute of Technology
-
Video games shown to improve vision
Mar 15, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Students Launch Audiball, an Xbox Community Game
Jan 16, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Mayo Clinic shows adding activity to video games fights obesity
Jan 04, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Leveling the gaming field
May 13, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Video games linked to poor relationships with friends, family
Jan 23, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (30) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
The Biggest Lie Ever
22 hours ago
-
What are the limits of learning?
Feb 06, 2012
-
Isn't that grammatically wrong?
Feb 06, 2012
-
What does it mean when traders are indifferent?
Feb 04, 2012
-
Peak of Our Civilization
Feb 04, 2012
-
bonds and YTM
Feb 03, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Social Sciences
More news stories
Sonic Cradle lands spot in TED exhibition
A Simon Fraser University graduate student project that melds music, meditation and modern technology has landed a rare spot as an exhibit at TEDActive 2012 in Palm Springs, California this month.
34 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation
(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...
The question of life in the ancient world
Theres a general feeling that we dont get the Greeks ancient or modern. Many, including heads of state like Angela Merkel, visibly shake their head in exasperation, rightly or wrongly, at ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
4 hours ago |
1 / 5 (1) |
2
Chilean miners' rescue capsule on show in London
The capsule used to rescue Chilean miners trapped underground for two months goes on display Saturday at the Science Museum in London -- the first time it has been seen in Europe.
3 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
US workers are 'giving away the store,' costing firms billions
Nearly 70 percent of the nation's service employees give away free goods and services from hamburgers to cable TV costing companies billions of dollars a year, according to a groundbreaking study.
Other Sciences / Economics & Business
22 hours ago |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
9
New understanding of DNA repair could eventually lead to cancer therapy
A research group in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta is hoping its latest discovery could one day be used to develop new therapies that target certain types of cancers.
Zuckerberg's focus drives Facebook's ascent
When Mark Zuckerberg showed up to rent Judy Fusco's Los Altos, Calif., house in the fall of 2004, soon after he'd arrived in Silicon Valley, the landlord was immediately struck by his confidence.
Both maternal and paternal age linked to autism
Older maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with having a child with autism, according to a recently published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
Night, weekend delivery OK for babies with birth defects
Weekday delivery is no better than night or weekend delivery for infants with birth defects, according to a new study presented today at The Pregnancy Meeting, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual conference. ...
Drug halts organ damage in inflammatory genetic disorder
A new study shows that Kineret (anakinra), a medication approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, is effective in stopping the progression of organ damage in people with neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease ...
Cochlear implants may be safe, effective for organ transplant patients
Cochlear implants may be a safe, effective option for some organ transplant patients who've lost their hearing as an unfortunate consequence of their transplant-related drug regime, researchers report.
Sep 10, 2009
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)