Abstract

The gaming industry boomed over the past decade, and the number of people it influences has also increased, particularly in the under-18 demographic, where most students fall under. In Holy Family Academy, there is a gray area among students, personnel, and the administration on gaming's implications on students' academic performance, which was made evident when two professional student gamers were not allowed a reprieve from their examinations to compete in an international tournament. To address this lack of consensus, the researchers took on a phenomenological study design to discover the academy's students' perceptions regarding gaming's effects on their academic productivity through in-depth interviews, and open-ended questionnaires when schedules would not allow an interview. The results highlighted that gaming can be a significant influence on the students, that the students' can discern gaming's beneficial and detrimental effects and thus use their discernment to make appropriate decisions, and that gamers are less affected by gaming when schoolwork is done before playing rather than the inverse where the negative effects are much more pronounced, that gaming can teach students important skills and values that are relevant in real-life situations, that a withdrawal from games has negligible effects on the students, and that students are relieved from stress and motivated to do schoolwork by playing games through a reward-based mentality. These results imply that gaming can be a highly beneficial tool in students' education as a motivator, a stress-reliever, and a pedagogical tool.