I think that generally, skills (including metacognitive skills) don’t transfer that well between different domains and it’s best to practice directly. However, games also give one better feedback loops and easier access to mentoring, so the room for improvement might be larger.
A meta-analysis on transfer from video games to cognitive abilities saw small or null gains:
The lack of skill generalization from one domain to different ones—that is, far transfer—has been documented in various fields of research such as working memory training, music, brain training, and chess. Video game training is another activity that has been claimed by many researchers to foster a broad range of cognitive abilities such as visual processing, attention, spatial ability, and cognitive control. We tested these claims with three random-effects meta-analytic models. The first meta-analysis (k = 310) examined the correlation between video game skill and cognitive ability. The second meta-analysis (k = 315) dealt with the differences between video game players and nonplayers in cognitive ability. The third meta-analysis (k = 359) investigated the effects of video game training on participants’ cognitive ability. Small or null overall effect sizes were found in all three models. These outcomes show that overall cognitive ability and video game skill are only weakly related. Importantly, we found no evidence of a causal relationship between playing video games and enhanced cognitive ability. Video game training thus represents no exception to the general difficulty of obtaining far transfer.
However, A review on study of chess does see some gains, and gains that seem to improve with more time of instruction, but it’s a smaller survey of inadequately designed studies.
I think that generally, skills (including metacognitive skills) don’t transfer that well between different domains and it’s best to practice directly. However, games also give one better feedback loops and easier access to mentoring, so the room for improvement might be larger.
A meta-analysis on transfer from video games to cognitive abilities saw small or null gains:
However, A review on study of chess does see some gains, and gains that seem to improve with more time of instruction, but it’s a smaller survey of inadequately designed studies.
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