‘Do violent video games appeal to key stage three students at Lincroft, and if so why?’ By Richard Webb

Violent video games. Daily mail. 8th October 2012. - I choose this because I thought it would be a very interesting topic to cover, and find out peoples opinion about. - I already knew that a lot of people disagree with violent video games, but I wanted to know if any body thought there could be a up side. - There isn’t that much information on the internet concerning violent video games but I managed to find an article about violence in games. Daily mail. 8th October 2012.

My research question. My research question for this presentation is: ‘Do violent video games appeal to key stage three students at Lincroft, and if so why?’ - The reason I am interested in this question is because I, myself, started playing violent video games quite recently, when my friends started playing. At the time I think it was peer pressure. - The information I decided that I would need the most for this topic was quantitative because I thought it would be better.

Methods I Used. -The main thing I used was questionnaires. I decided they would be the best because it meant I could get a large number of results and fast. -Below are the main questions I asked 31 male and female key stage three pupils at Lincroft, however my results are based on the 24 people who do play violent video games. The different ways I canvassed views were using: the likert scale, yes-no questions and open questions. 2. How often do you play violent video games? 9.Children know the difference between violence in video games and violence in real life. 8.Children should play violent video games because it lets them get their anger out. 6.Why do you play violent video games? 5.Do your parents keep track of which video games you play? 10.Do you prefer violent video games, such as eighteens to PGs for example? 3.What age were you when you started playing violent video games?

Work ethics. On the first session of the Open University project, we spent a large part of the session learning about ethics. The things we learnt are listed below: -That it doesn’t cause any sort of harm. -Does not mislead people. -Does not lie. -Respects people and their opinions. -Asks for consent. -Keeps data anonymous. So in the end everybody's happy! To deal with ethics I double checked my questions and made sure they were all fair and just.

Data analysis and my findings. -I had more quantitative data than qualitative data because I didn’t have time to analyse the results of my interview. I also considered it less important. -I analysed my data using tally charts. To analyse the themes I used tally charts as well. Over the next few slides are the graphs I used to present my data. One of these being a pie chart.

The graphs for questions 6 and question 8. The graph on the left shows that most children play violent video games because they find them exciting. This doesn’t surprise me. The pie chart on the right show responses to whether or not children disagree or agree with the statement: ‘Children should play violent games because it lets them get their anger out.’ It shows that the majority disagree with the statement. So it seems people use games to stimulate them rather than to release pent-up emotions.

The graphs for questions 2 and 3. The graph on the left shows how many times a week people play violent video games. As you can see the majority of people say they don’t play violent video games that often, in their opinion. The graph on the right shows that most people started playing violent video games when they were between 8-10 years old, which I think is rather shocking!

The graphs to represent questions 5 and 9. The pie chart on the left represents the statement: ‘Children know the difference between violence in games and violence in real life.’ It shows that 95% of students strongly agree or agree that they know the difference. Despite that the pie chart on the right shows that nearly 70% say their parents keep an eye on them. This suggests that parents are a bit more cautious about video games. This could suggest that the older you become the more cautious you become.

The graphs to represent question 10. The pie chart on the left is to represent why children prefer violent video games to PGs, for example. The graph on the right represents the same but as a yes or no question. These graphs show that most people do prefer to play video games compared to PGs and for the main reasons that they are: exciting and less boring. A ratio of 13:6 people say that they prefer violent video games to PGs.

Conclusions. The data I found suggested that: parents are wary about video games; children mainly play violent video games for thrill; children disagree with playing to release anger; children don’t play violent video games as much as I expected and most people started playing between the age of 8 and 10. I found that: ‘Children prefer playing violent video games to PGs in the ratio 13:6. They prefer them mainly because they are less childish, or boring, than PGs or are more exciting.’ I hope you have all learnt that children don’t play violent video games as much as you think and everybody shouldn’t be too quick to judge us in the future. The next thing I would like to research would be why parents might be more cautious about video games.

Thank you for watching! Any questions?