As the father of four children, two of whom are gamers, University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel Willingham recently found himself wondering about the educational value of video games.

To wit: Which games can actually teach children something?

Willingham did a search in Apple’s App Store and was shocked by how hard it was to ascertain. From reading manufacturers’ descriptions, it was almost impossible to know which games had genuine educational value and which ones didn’t. The only way to know for sure was to play the game.

Willingham was struck by the fact there is a rating system to help parents keep their kids away from content that isn’t age-appropriate, but nothing to lead them toward games that could actually teach something.

“It’s not as if kids have to be learning something with every activity,” Willingham said. “I just think transparency is useful for parents.”

It was with that in mind that Willingham wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times in which he advocated for the implantation of an educational rating system for video games.

Willingham says it’s almost impossible to tell from just reading the description of a video game if it has any educational value. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)

UVA Today caught up with Willingham – whose work is centered on cognition as it applies to K-12 children – to take a deeper dive into the subject.

Q. As video games are presented now, what makes them so difficult to determine whether a game has any educational value or not?

A. It’s a mess. There’s not an authority. Right now, there’s nobody who’s knowledgeable and providing that sort of information. You see games in the “educational” part of the App Store, like a first-person shooter, and say, “What in the world am I going to learn from that?”

But more often I think you really need to play the game in order to know. You can’t really tell from a description. That’s part of what I was trying to convey in the op-ed. Learning is pretty subtle. And I think it can go both ways. I think there are times where you may actually learn some things from a video game that you wouldn’t expect to learn anything from. And then equally often, you probably won’t learn much from ones it where it looks like you will.

Q. Are there any good examples of that?

A. I think people seriously think you’re going to learn physics from RollerCoaster Tycoon (a game that allows players to construct their own roller coasters). One of the things we know is that learning principles of physics is really hard, even in a physics class.

There are several studies showing that when you teach Newtonian physics, in the beginning of the semester everybody is an Aristotelian. They have this intuitive understanding of how motion works; for example they think that when you throw something, the thrown object has this sort of quality … like impetus … and that’s the reason it keeps on moving. Then you teach them the Newtonian version and they pass all the tests, and then at the end of the semester they’re really still Aristotelians. It’s like, “Yeah, I know that’s what it said but it never really made a whole lot of sense to me.”

So the idea that you fiddle with RollerCoaster Tycoon and that’s going to teach you [physics], it’s not very realistic. What’s much more likely to happen is that you’ll play by trial and error. You try things, you crash, and you fiddle around until the thing works.

One of the principles of memory that has always fascinated me is that the desire to learn contributes exactly nothing to whether or not you actually learn. So most of the learning that takes place in our life is stuff that we just think about and it stays with us, rather than we’re actively trying to learn. Psychologists call this incidental learning. There’s lots of incidental learning that can take place in gaming.

Q. In your op-ed, you wrote that it should be as easy for parents to guide their kids toward enriching games as it is to shield them from unacceptable ones. Can you discuss that a little more?

A. There were a couple of games that came out in the early ’90s that were extremely violent, and parents got really upset. … There was enough outrage that Congress was making noise like they might do something and really regulate the industry. That motivated the industry to regulate itself.

The mechanism is that the game creator writes up a fairly detailed description of the game – specifically outlining what the possible objectionable content is. And there are 30 categories … all these different details about it. And there are three independent raters who are professionals and they rate the game independently and then finalize both an age recommendation and a detailed listing of the objectionable content.

What gives it teeth is that the people who sell these games – when it’s rated MA (mature audiences) or whatever – they won’t sell it to minors. The thing that was most impressive to me was that, about 10 years after the system was created, the Federal Trade Commission said, “It’s really working well.” And most gaming systems, stand-alone consoles and also phones, have parental controls where this rating system is integrated.

Q. So what kind of educational rating system would you propose? If you were in charge of the whole thing, how would you do it?

A. It would be something similar to what I’ve just described. You would have one sort of content category that says, “This is the kind of stuff to which your child will be exposed and they might learn from.” You could imagine all the different parts of natural sciences and language; there would be a literature category; there would be a phonics category; there would be a math category and on and on. And then there would be a rating that would say the probability that your child is actually going to learn from this.

Q. A lot of kids like to watch videos of other people playing video games. How do you feel about that in terms of learning?

A. I don’t think it’s likely that a whole lot of learning is going to take place. I think of that as comparable to watching sports. The pleasure for the viewer is that you have some inkling of what it takes to be good at what they’re doing. And they’re very, very good – so watching expert performances is pleasurable.

For example, there are people who aren’t very talented in playing football, but they enjoy watching football. Part of that is camaraderie, and I see that also in gamers. They have their favorite YouTube people and it’s based on the YouTuber’s personality. And you feel a certain esprit de corps with other people who like that YouTuber, just like if you’re a Patriots fan, you feel like you’ve got a little something in common with other Patriots fan. I class it that way.

Q. In the absence of an educational ratings system, how are you approaching the situation with your children? Do you have any advice for parents?

A. Certainly, it’s good to know what your kids are playing – let them show you what they’re up to, which they’ll probably enjoy doing. When it comes to learning in particular, as I said, the conditions under which learning happens or doesn’t are often pretty subtle. It would be easy to guess wrong. The old advice, “All things in moderation,” makes sense here. It may be hard to be certain they are going to learn from a game, but you can make sure your kids spend some time reading, spend some time moving their bodies, spend some time in nature, in addition to spending time gaming.