Abstract:

The aim of this presentation is to analyze the different typologies of primary school students according to the possession and use of video games and their possible psycho-emotional and educational implications. The possession and use of digital devices and games is an essential aspect to understand how primary school students begin their digital journey and how their use can influence the psycho-emotional, socio-family and educational spheres and, in this way, also be able to propose a more sustainable and educational use of them. In order to identify the different typologies, a latent class model was applied using the Latent Gold v4.5 software; which allows modeling the relationships between the observed variables, assuming that the structure of underlying relationships is explained by a categorical latent variable (not observed). The sample consisted of 242 students. The mean age of the students was 9.47 years, with a standard deviation of 2.20 years. The distribution of boys and girls was, respectively, 61.98% and 38.02%. Of these, 19.42% were students in 1st ESO, 25.21% in 1st or 2nd of Primary, 27.27% in 3rd or 4th of Primary, and the remaining 28.10% were in 5th or 6th. from elementary school. For the development of the research, a specific questionnaire was created, taking into consideration the published scientific literature and the conditions of the age of the students to whom it was intended (between 6 and 12 years). The questionnaire was carried out with a gamified application (Quizz) (https://acortar.link/K35T65) to facilitate its completion bt primary students. It was disclosed through two channels: official email from schools and the Association of Parents of Students. It was also done in paper format in some educational centers (n= 89). The questionnaire was never sent to the students but to their fathers, mothers or legal guardians.

The questionnaire was composed of 32 items grouped into seven macrovariables:
(1) Sociodemographic variables.
(2) Possession and use.
(3) Places and times.
(4) Psychoemotional variables.
(5) Social variables.
(6) Dynamic Usability (Flow) and
(7) Game Characteristics.

The students had to respond to each item by scoring it on a 1-5 scale, 1 meaning “totally disagree” and 5 “totally agree”. For its part, the KMO sample adequacy test yields a value close to 1 (0.856), so the partial correlations of our variables are very small. The results show that there are two well-differentiated clusters; one first formed by boys who usually get better grades in mathematics and usually play video games on TV video game consoles, they usually play with friends online, during the weekend and play more than two hours. They feel very happy playing video games and usually when they have free time the first thing they think about is playing video games. Furthermore, the second group is made up of girls, who usually get better grades in Spanish Language and Literature, they usually play with the Tablet, and do it with the family, during the weekend, playing usually more than two hours. Likewise, they feel a high level of happiness when playing video games, although a little lower than in boys cluster and when they have free time they do not usually think about playing video games.

Keywords:

Primary education, possession, use, digital devices, video games, education.