The aim of the present study was to determine whether adolescents of different educational ability levels have different
video game preferences, are attracted by different game features, and have different motivations to play video games. We
were especially interested in testing whether boys of low educational ability are especially attracted to the violence in video
games, because violent games are a significant risk factor for aggressive behavior (for a meta-analytic review, see Anderson
et al., 2010).
Realism was measured using 4 items (e.g., “The situations in the game also occur in real life”; Cronbach a ¼ .76). A debriefing
followed.