Introduction
One of the crucial issues that happening in this decade is that games become popular among all stages of people such as children, teenager and adult. Video games have become one of the favorite activities of children in America and school children have been affected significantly (Dewitt, 1993 cited in Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004). Games have been developed at the early of 1940s-1950. Since electric media (Games) are popular among all generation, there are positive and negative impacts of them. In fact, One of the purposes of the games is to entertain people but if people use it in the wrong way it will give negative influence on them, in contrast if they play game for a good purpose, such as educational video games that would bring great benefit to them.
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Playing aggressive and violent games may result in psychological problems of the player. Craton (2011) stated that “there is a large body of evidence which suggest that video game lead to increased aggression and even violence, there is some mixed evidence on psychological effect of violent in video game”. Furthermore, the violence in video game are significantly associated with increase aggressive behavior, throughout and affect, increase physiological arousal and decrease prosocial (helping) behavior Anderson (as cited in Craton, 2011). However there are still have some benefits of playing game such as relief stress, perform better in technical subject, train the brain, learn how to focus and learn how to control emotion. According to Lin (2010) found out that “the perceived positive effect on college students in Taiwan with respect training intellectual capacity, relaxing and learning to control emotion “.
Several pieces of research have been reviewed that, well designed videogames giving toward cognitive development than traditional learning, identify from 36 areas Geein 2004 (as cited in Barry; Jacobs;Watkins, 2008). Some research had showed that videogames may be one way to engage students more in the learning process; it seems especially true in area involving analytical skill. They can contribute another way of learning in addition to much other pedagogical method which is currently popular. There is ongoing research on how to best leverage games in education, if they should be use it at all (Craton, 2011).
Ventura, Shute and Kim (2012) stated that playing video game is challenging in problems solving activities hence playing videogames provide many skill such as managing time to solving and investigation case, to maintaining skill to upgrade character. On the other hand playing videogame is often associated in society with poor academic performance. This anecdotal idea is supported by some research. There were 2000 studies found negative correlation between GPA and time spent playing videogame Anderson and Dill (as cited in Craton, 2011). There was studying on undergraduate students about violent in videogame and the result was surprisingly interesting, according to result violent in videogame seems to affect more on male compared to female in this study use both non-violent and violent to investigate Bartholow and Anderson (as cited in Craton 2011)
Littlelton; Haywood and Macleod (n.d) and Barry; Jacobs and Watkins (2008) studied those college gamer students had a good performance in academic compared with non-gamer students, furthermore, gamers that performed poor on academic it might be because of students don’t have any interested on those subjects. Lin (2010) analyzed that first, the items that accessed the positive effect of videogames including emotional related effect such as relaxing and learning to control emotion, physical or intellectual-related effects of training intellectual capacity or participating eye-hand coordination. Second, items that described explicit negative aspects of videogame effect, including body discomfort, such as experiencing dizziness and nausea, or effect caused by negative content of videogames, such as becoming violent or obtaining wrong idea from what’s portrayed in videogame.
Barry, Jacob and Watkins (2008), claim that having poor academic performance it’s not just because of game, but it can be also influence from others media such as TV, music , cinema, and social activities (like pubs, club, and parties). In contrast Egenfeldt-Nielsen and Smith (2003) found that students who played more than others for several years, or who bought computer games, had more often been involved in physical fights. However, it is worth highlighting at this point at the aim of study positive and negative influence on students and many of the studies stated above have done, but it rarely aim at perception on influence of game among 4th year Engineering students in IIUM. From which conclusion may or may not be validly drawn.
As the attractiveness of game has attracted crucial attention in these days as the same time it came out with variety types of game to catch the attention of younger generation as well as adult, it make people spent their free time on playing games rather than do other activities, this could lead to antisocial and bad attitude Anderson, Myths and Facts (as cited in carton, 2011), in addition the number of people who are playing game keep increasing among higher education students due to advance in technology liked smart phone, tablet, and EA, because of these devices make it more easier to access to game every time that they want . According to ELSPA ( as cited in Boyle and Hibberd, 2005 ) the video game market in UK has grown significantly in the past decade, the sale of entertainment and leisure software in the UK totaled 1.34billion Euro.
Moreover, higher education students might lose their concentration on study, and typically make people isolate themselves from real world and health problems, the bad pressure of game might make youngster be more aggressive and the more their spent time on playing game the most probably will lead to poor in academic performance. Lin (2010) stated negative aspect of video game effects included body discomfort, such as experience dizziness and nausea, or effect caused by negative content of video game such as becoming violent or obtaining wrong idea from what portaged in video game.
Since there is no research carried out about Perception on influence of game among engineering students in IIUM. The aim of this study is to find out students’ preference on gaming and to identify students’ perception on the effect of gaming on their academic performance. The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of the students on video games and try to reveal the effect of these games on the students’ academic performance as well as to give recommendation on how to regulate this action. Islamic perspective will be incorporated into the topic, which will focus on wastage of time when addicted to videogames.
The questions that the researcher seeks to answer are as follows:
1. What is the perception of students on the effect of playing games on their academic performance?
2. What is the difference between their perceptions on videogames?
