Running head: VIDEO GAME PLAYING AND READING MOTIVATION 1 Using Video Game Playing to Increase Student Motivation To Read

“How can I get my students to read? ” is a question frequently asked by educators when dealing with 21 st century students. In this article, I review current literature based around using video games as a pedagogical tool. Topics looked at include the decline of interest in reading, the rise in student comfort with technology, the ability for video games to increase intrinsic motivation, how the larger fields of reading, motivation, and video games form the reasoning for this research, and benefits from previous research. Primary research is also discussed; 20 students from Ohio Dominican University participated in a study where they played the video game The Hobbit (2003) to see whether they would be motivated to read the book The Hobbit (1937). Due to lack of subject feedback, quantitative results were limited, but qualitative results were found. None of the subjects were regular gamers, but two to of the five subjects to play the game and respond to a survey did read some of the book after playing the game. While this is stastically insignificant, it does provide reason to continue research in this field with a re-designed and larger study