Il videogame come strumento per incrementare la persistenza motivazionale

[Autom. eng. transl.] For over thirty years research in the field of videogames has focused almost exclusively on the negative results of videogames on the individual. Only in the last decade have studies appeared that have shown, instead, also the benefits. Surprisingly, only a non-experimental study attempted to investigate the effect of videogames on persistence. Is it possible that a motivational training with a simple videogame can increase the motivational persistence in areas not strictly videoludic (spillover effect)? The hypothesis was verified for the first time in an experiment. Through randomization, half of the participants (n1 = 10) underwent videogame training to increase their persistence; the other half (n2 = 10), to the simple passive exposure to the video of the same video game. Subsequently the participants were asked to solve 4 puzzles. The time used to complete the puzzles constituted the dependent variable (persistence time). As expected, those who had played video games actually spent more time solving the puzzles than the control group, t (18) = 3.97, p = .001, proving to be comparatively much more persistent (d = 1.87; r = .68) . This first demonstration of the effective increase in motivational persistence following a videogame training testifies to the benefit that this tool could also bring in other fields. This potential could be exploited in different realities, increasing, for example, the probability that a student persists in the study, that a patient adheres to a medium-long term therapy, or that a worker persists in achieving important individual goals and / or of group.