A group of venture capitalists has decided to fund the creation of a new company to create educational software for the home and school market. They've hired some of the leading researchers/thinkers in the field of motivation to advise them, and now they're getting ready to hire a fleet of instructional designers.
The goal: as quickly as possible, you need to become credible and facile at looking at software and describing it in terms of motivation constructs. Toward that end, you'll work in teams of four to divide and conquer your uncertainties on the topic.
You'll need to have access to the course readings on intrinsic motivation to complete this exercise.
To begin, you are assigned to specialize in one of the theorists as follows:
Robin and Matt , you are to become Csikszentmihalyologists. Scan and dissect the Csikszentmihalyi readings until they flow into your long term memory.
Rebecca and Lisa : I'm a Lepper, he's a Lepper, wouldn't you like to be a Lepper, too? Drink Dr. Lepper's article deeply and prepare to speak and think as he does.
Bob and Cathy , declare John Keller as your personal guru and squeeze what you can from his chapter.
Next, download Snood for whatever platform you're using. Mac | Windows
Install it on your computer and corral a friend or spouse to play it while you watch carefully.
- The first
thing we'll do is to become familiar with a method for measuring emotional
state. Print out a copy of the Game
Response Adjective Matrix. This is basically a one-item measure of someone's
emotional state at any given moment. Notice that it ranges from pain to pleasure
on the x-axis, and from comatose to highly activated on the y-axis. Research has
shown that you can characterize any emotional state as lying somewhere in that plane.
To familiarize your gameplayer with it, ask them to picture themselves in various emotion-laden situations and point to how they'd feel in that setting. Here are some suggestions:
a. Going out on your first date ever
b. Sitting through a very long lecture on a hot day
c. Learning that you got an A on a hard test
d. Discovering that you have a flat tire
- Load up the game and give your player a few (no more than 3) minutes to get acquainted
with it. Don't let them actually start to play. Just poke around.
- With a sheet of paper in hand, get ready to watch your player play. Begin by asking
them to point to the adjective that most closely describes their emotional state
just before starting the game. Then say "Begin".
- Let them play for exactly 2 minutes, then ask them to stop and indicate their emotional
state. Take note of what's happening in the game at each point.
- Repeat
the questioning process every 2 minutes for the next 20-30 minutes.
If at the 20 minute mark the player is in the middle of a game, continue
until the game is completed. If a game is concluded well before the
20 minute mark, continue playing until a natural break point is arrived
at.
- At the
end of the time period, ask the player to go over each data point
and reflect on what s/he was thinking and feeling at that moment.
- Finally,
discuss the results from the perspectives of your assigned theorist and type in your
summary onto this
page. Describe any overall patterns in motivation and emotion that you noted.
What quadrant of the Game Response Adjective Matrix did they spend most time in?
How did it vary over time? Read the postings by the other online students and see
what the other theorists would have said about the game. You don't need to collaborate
with each other to do this exercise... think of it as the parallel play that toddlers
do.
- We'll discuss your findings in our next chat session. Have fun!
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New
York: Harper & Row. (Chapter 3: Enjoyment and the quality of life;
Chapter 4: The conditions of flow)
Keller, J. M., & Suzuki, K. (1988). Use of the ARCS motivation model in courseware design. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.). Instructional designs for microcomputer courseware. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lepper, M. R., & Malone, T. W. (1987). Intrinsic motivation and instructional effectiveness in computer-based education. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.). Aptitude, learning and instruction. Volume 3: Conative and affective process analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.). Aptitude, learning and instruction. Volume 3: Conative and affective process analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Russell, J. A., Weiss, A., & Mendelsohn, G. A. (1989). Affect grid: A single-item scale of pleasure and arousal. Journal of personality and social psychology, 57, 493-502.
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