Many GOP party members, like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, are hyper critical of the spending that goes on in education institutions. Eric Cantor joins the ranks of Walker and his ilk by criticizing a 2012 study done by the psychology department at North Carolina State University.
The study in question involved seniors playing World of Warcraft to test the effects it had on their brain. Cantor described this use of the federally funded $1.2 million as government waste.
I can sort of see what Cantor is getting at. $1.2 million is a lot of money for a university study that only had 39 participants. If you’re wondering how that money was used, Joystiq got the dirt on these wasteful psychologist rapscallions.
Back the Fund Up
Jason Allaire, associate professor at North Carolina State had this to say:
The funding for the WoW study ($5K) came from NC-State as part of a pilot research funding program. The results of the WoW study were published last year … so for some reason that paper got equated with our NSF grant. We do in fact have $1.2 million dollar grant from NSF that examines what aspects or mechanisms are responsible for improvements in cognition due to playing digital games and funds our development of a game based on these findings. This NSF grant is still on going…The NSF study has absolutely nothing to do with WoW.
Not only did majority leader get the dollar amount wrong for the study, but it was state funds. Furthermore, the study that the $1.2 million is funding doesn’t even use World of Warcraft.
Dang, Cantor. You failed that WoW study quest. You might want to open up your log, abandon it, and try again later. Perhaps you should use some of the federally funded gold you have in your bank to buy a fact checker off the AH.
