This study explores the potential correlation between an adolescent's leisurely video game experience and their narrative composition writing ability in a first-semester University writing course. Our data report moderate correlations between students' aggregated video game experience (years spent playing) and their ability to articulate tension and turn, and use proper organization in composition assignments, notably an early-semester diagnostic essay (assigned on the first day of class, prior to formal instruction). Findings suggest that leisurely gameplay might help develop competency with the same creative skills related to written narrative ability, potentially facilitating the learning of these skills in the classroom. Citation: Bowman, N. D., Baldwin, C., & Jones, J. (2015, November). Virtual tensions fuel narrative tensions: The impact of leisurely video game experience on first-year college students’ observed composition writing ability. Paper presented at the National Communication Association, Las Vegas.

1. Research Question
RQ1: Does video game play
experience correlate with higher-
quality narrative writing ability?
“While a video game
controller bears little
resemblance to a quill pen,
carbon-lead pencil, or laptop
keyboard - our study offers
preliminary evidence that
there are semantic
associations between
gaming and writing that are
not trivial.”
Video Game
Self-Efficacy
Weekly Video Gaming
Experience
Years Spent Gaming
Diagnostic Essay (n = 54)
Tension and Turn .074 (-.001) .213 (.133) .394* (.146)
Resolution and
Conclusion
.145 (.114) .195 (.127) .159 (-.019)
Description and Detail .133 (.104) .158 (.182) .158 (-.023)
Organization .135 (-.198) .295+ (.219) .350* (.159)
Overall Evaluation .140 (.009) .243 (.204) .297+ (.077)
Narrative Essay (n = 68)
Tension and Turn -.195 (-.019) -.021 (-.068) .191 (.031)
Resolution and
Conclusion
-.039 (-.053) .058 (-.133) .128 (.068)
Description and Detail .096 (-.097) .143 (-.131) .114 (.106)
Organization -.313+ (-.213)+ .095 (.022) .297+ (.217)+
Overall Evaluation -.163 (-.122) 079 (-.101) .236 (.135)
The impact of leisurely video game experience on first-
year college students’ observed composition writing ability
Abstract
This study explores the potential correlation between an adolescent's
leisurely video game experience and their narrative composition
writing ability in a first-semester University writing course. Our data
report moderate correlations between students' aggregated video
game experience (years spent playing) and their ability to articulate
tension and turn, and use proper organization in composition
assignments, notably an early-semester diagnostic essay (assigned on
the first day of class, prior to formal instruction). Findings suggest that
leisurely gameplay might help develop competency with the same
creative skills related to written narrative ability, potentially
facilitating the learning of these skills in the classroom.
“…it is reasonable to expect that
students’ experience playing video
game might share some relationship
with their ability to compose
narratives in the first-year college
classroom. Such a finding would be
relevant insofar as it might suggest that
“gamers” might be better-prepared for
narrative learning, having had more
experience with narrative broadly.”
“…three attributes of video game play that make it
an activity well-suited to foster an appreciation of
and ability to craft narrative.
1. Video games are an interactive and
demanding experience that involves the
player and several different levels of the
experience (Gentile & Anderson, 2003)
2. Video games are inherently unfinished
texts that require the player’s active agency
in order to be realized as complete narrative
experiences (Bowman & Banks, in press;
Collins, 2013).
3. Video games are often defined in part by
their ability to involve the gamers in the on-
screen narrative world (Green, Brock, &
Kaufman, 2006).
Virtual tensions fuel narrative tensions
Nick Bowman
Communication Studies
John Jones
Department of English
Sandy Baldwin
Department of English
For more information, contact:
Nicholas.Bowman@mail.wvu.edu
@bowmanspartan