Children’s Digital Game Addiction and Opinions About Their Parents’ Playing Digital Games ( A Mixed Method Study)

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to review the level of children's digital game playing addiction and to evaluate their opinions on the parents playing digital games. In the 2017-2018 academic year, the students of the Şehit Ramazan Konuş secondary school affiliated to the Niğde Provincial Directorate of National Education constitute the universe of the research. 246 students who were chosen according to the method of typical case sampling constituted the sampling of the research. "Mixed method research" has been adopted as a research model and "Explanatory Design" has been used as a mixed method research design.

In this direction; the "Digital Game Addiction Scale for Children" developed by Hazar and Hazar was applied in 2017 in the quantitative part of the study. In the qualitative section, interviews were made with 14 participants, 7 females and 7 males, who had high level of addiction and who regularly played digital games, participated in the research voluntarily. The data were analyzed by content analysis and descriptive analysis.

The data obtained for the study were analyzed primarily through the SPSS 24 packet program. According to the results of this analysis, participants were found to have statistically significant difference in gender, age, and parents’ playing and not playing digital games, while it was seen that there was no statistically significant difference. Whether they had a sportsman license, whether or not internet access was available at their residence, and parents' educational status variables In the qualitative analysis of the research, 8 themes and sub-themes related to this theme were formed.

As a result; it is a striking result that the dependency of the participants with digital game playing parents and weak family relations is higher than the other participants. The high level of addiction of the participants with an athlete license is a noteworthy finding.