Academics’ Attitudes Toward Using Digital Games for Learning & Teaching in Malaysia

Abstract

Digital (or computer) games have been extremely attractive to gamers of all ages, especially the young ones. They spend much time playing such games for pleasure and entertainment. Harnessing digital games for education has been attempted in some advanced countries where teachers seemed to be receptive to the idea. In Malaysia no major study has been undertaken about the university teacher’s attitudes towards using digital games in their classrooms. And so the purpose of this study is to investigate university teachers’ perception of utilizing digital games in classroom in Malaysian universities and colleges. It seeks to answer a fundamental question: do university teachers in Malaysia have favorable or unfavorable perceptions toward using digital games in their teaching efforts? And how do they differ in their views about digital game potential according to the influence of variables such as age, gender, academic discipline and others sets of independent variables? For answering these fundamental questions an online questionnaire-based research surveyed 273 teachers in 5 Malaysian universities. The method was conventionally tested for validity and the data analyzed in order to draw some conclusions. Overall the results show that the majority of Malaysian university teachers have favorable attitudes using digital games in their classroom. Less than a majority, but a sizeable number of teachers have not formed any opinion for or against using digital games in the classroom. Gender, age, years of teaching, teaching discipline and other variables do not influence the respondents’ positive or negative attitudes toward using digital games in the classrooms. Playing digital games, as a lifestyle habit, by respondents shows an association with positive attitude. In other words, those who play digital games themselves are more likely to have favorable attitudes toward using those games for education.