Motivating Children to Learn Effectively: Exploring the Value of Intrinsic Integration in Educational Games

By C. S. Nair, A. Patil, Patricie Mertova, I. Tsevreni, A. Stokes, K. Magnier, Ruth Weaver, Hallgeir Halvari, Knut Skjesol, Hee-Sun Lee and 20 more. 2011

609 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The concept of intrinsic motivation lies at the heart of the user engagement created by digital games. Yet despite this, educational software has traditionally attempted to harness games as extrinsic motivation by using them as a sugar coating for learning content. This article tests the concept of intrinsic integration as a way of creating a more productive relationship between educational games and their learning content. Two studies assessed this approach by designing and evaluating an educational game called Zombie Division to teach mathematics to 7- to 11-year-olds. Study 1 examined the learning gains of 58 children who played either the intrinsic, extrinsic, or control variants of Zombie Division for 2 hr, supported by their classroom teacher. Study 2 compared time on task for the intrinsic and extrinsic variants of the game when 16 children had free choice of which game to play. The results showed that children learned more from the intrinsic version of the game under fixed time limits and spent 7 times longer playing it in free-time situations. Together, these studies offer evidence for the genuine value of an intrinsic approach for creating effective educational games. The theoretical and commercial implications of these findings are discussed.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/91377ab9bb89c70b66fcfb6e64998fcce38a9728

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

The Lens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms: A Method for Gameful Design (2015, background): “Evidence supports that intrinsically integrated serious games are motivationally and educationally more effective (Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011).”
Multi-Armed Bandits for Intelligent Tutoring Systems (2013, background): “This follows well know instructional design [27] and concords with theories of intrinsic motivation that clearly suggest that motivation and learning improves if exercises are proposed at levels that are only slightly higher than the current level [32, 26].”
Scaffolding game-based learning: Impact on learning achievements, perceived learning, and game experiences (2014, background): “A general design principle is that the actions needed to learn the content of the game and the actions that lead to flow and enjoyment in the game should be one and the same or at least mutually reinforcing (Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011; Lepper & Cordova, 1992).”
A meta-analysis of the cognitive and motivational effects of serious games (2013, background): “Interesting in this respect is the work of Habgood and Ainsworth (2011), who found that the integration of arithmetical content with the game mechanics that make playing games entertaining was more motivating than a game version in which both components were not integrated.”
Effects of Game-Based Learning on Attitude and Achievement in Elementary Mathematics (2019, background): “Other researchers (Cicchino, 2015; Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011) have concluded that gamebased learning (GBL) can be very effective for the development of student intrinsic motivation and critical thinking in the classroom. https://newprairiepress.org/networks/vol21/iss1/5 DOI:…”