CCP is hosting a conference on the connection between video games and academics

Next week, Community College of Philadelphia students will present research on the relationship between playing video games and academic performance at a daylong gathering called The Video Gaming & Society Conference.

The conference was organized by students in professor Rick Frei’s Descriptive Research Methods class, which in the past has researched topics like sexting, marijuana use, the Philly Soda Tax and cyberbullying, Frei said.

This semester’s students surveyed more than 1,100 middle school, high school, and college students, looking at the relationship between gaming and academic performance. The purpose of the event is to facilitate community discussion through education.

“We are still analyzing the data, but the initial findings mirror what other researchers have found in the past — no difference in academic performance between video game players and nonplayers,” Frei told Technical.ly. “However, among video game players, the amount of time spent playing was negatively correlated with GPA.”

The class is also looking at factors like grade level, interest in different types of careers, and favorite types of games, Frei added.

Throughout the day, speakers from area schools and organizations will touch on topics such as the history of video games, gaming communities and the psychology behind gaming.

Speakers include Philly Game Mechanics’ Shawn Pierre, Drexel University’s Entrepreneurial Game Studio’s Frank J. Lee — the academic behind all those skyscraper game displays — and CCP professor Calion Lockridge.

The conference, on Wednesday, Nov. 20, is free and open to the public in room C2-28 at CCP’s Center for Business and Industry.

You can register for the event and find more information here.