Smith, Stephanie2024-07-052024-07-052022https://hdl.handle.net/2440/141537This item is only available electronically.Many adolescents are Online Gaming which makes their Learning Engagement levels at school increasingly challenge with shifted attention. Many studies have researched the effects of gaming on engagement. However, there has been a gap in literature measuring the effects of Anxiety, and the negative ramifications from excessive online gaming levels in secondary students. The current study measured the relationship between online gaming and Australian secondary students' learning engagement levels and if anxiety acted as a moderator on this relationship. A total of 17,082 Australian secondary students were administered with the Resilience Survey in 2021. Participants provided demographic data such as age, grade, gender, and their suburb/postcode. Other items included engagement levels and daily online gameplay. Anxiety was measured using the GAD-2 scale. There were statistically significant findings of a negative association between online gaming and learning engagement, where higher levels of online gaming were associated with lower levels of learning engagement. Anxiety was found to moderate this relationship with higher levels of anxiety being predictive of higher levels of online gaming and lower levels of learning engagement. Limitations of our study include the cross-sectional nature limiting the causal effects of our variables and the directions of our associations. Anxiety and engagement levels were measured at one point in time which does not account for changes over the academic year. In addition, only one gaming item was used to measure frequency of gameplay. Potential future studies could measure possible coping effects and include various gaming items related to genre and platforms. The next step would consider how to improve this relationship between online gaming and learning engagement to improve adolescent wellbeing and introduce measures that can decrease the impact of anxiety that predicts this relationship. Keywords: Online Gaming, Learning Engagement, Anxiety, Adolescents.Honours; PsychologyThesis