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Game, Motivation, and Effective Learning: An Integrated Model for Educational Game Design.

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Bradley S. Paras
Bradley S. Paras
Bradley S. Paras
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Jim Bizzocchi at Simon Fraser University
Jim Bizzocchi
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Abstract

As new technologies enable increasingly sophisticated game experiences, the potential for the integration of games and learning becomes ever more significant. Motivation has long been considered as an important step in learning. Researchers suggest Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Theory as a method for understanding and implementing motivation. This bears significance since games foster play, which produces a state of flow, which increases motivation, which supports the learning process. However, this relationship is not as straightforward as it first seems. Research also shows that reflection is an important part of the learning process and while in the state of flow, players rarely reflect on the learning that is taking place. This paper explains how games can act as effective learning environments by integrating reflection into the process of play, producing an endogenous learning experience that is intrinsically motivating.
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Game, Motivation, and Effective Learning: An
Integrated Model for Educational Game Design
Brad Paras
Simon Fraser University Surrey
2400 Surrey Place
10153 King George Highway, Surrey BC
604.671.1794
bparasa@sfu.ca
Jim Bizzocchi
Simon Fraser University Surrey
2400 Surrey Place
10153 King George Highway, Surrey BC
604.268.7437
jimbiz@sfu.ca
ABSTRACT
As new technologies enable increasingly sophisticated game experiences, the potential for the
integration of games and learning becomes ever more significant. Motivation has long been
considered as an important step in learning. Researchers suggest Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow
Theory as a method for understanding and implementing motivation. This bears significance
since games foster play, which produces a state of flow, which increases motivation, which
supports the learning process. However, this relationship is not as straightforward as it first
seems. Research also shows that reflection is an important part of the learning process and while
in the state of flow, players rarely reflect on the learning that is taking place. This paper explains
how games can act as effective learning environments by integrating reflection into the process
of play, producing an endogenous learning experience that is intrinsically motivating.
Keywords
Games, Motivation, Flow, Play, Reflection
Game environments have great potential to support immersive learning experiences. Learning
can be defined as “the act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill.” To engage in
this act of gaining knowledge or skill, learners must be motivated. According to Chan & Ahern
[2], “When people are intrinsically motivated to learn, they not only learn more, they also have a
more positive experience.” Games meet both these tests for effective learning environments: they
are active experiences, and they have the capacity to provide intrinsic motivation.
MOTIVATION
To motivate is to “provide with an incentive”. To motivate someone to learn is to provide them
with an incentive to engage in the act of gaining knowledge. In traditional instructional design
practice, motivation is often considered as a preliminary step in the instructional process [2].
Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views – Worlds in Play.
© 2005 Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is
allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author.
Intrinsic motivation in learning, however, focuses on the development of motivation throughout
the entire instructional process. Though traditional instructional design practice focuses on a less
integrated approach, developing life-long learners who are intrinsically motivated, display
intellectual curiosity, find learning enjoyable, and continue seeking knowledge after their formal
instruction has ended has always been a major goal of education [17].
Looking at the ‘effort’ expelled during the learning process will help determine whether learners
are motivated. However, for ‘effort’ to even occur, there are two necessary prerequisites
required: (1) the person must value the task and (2) the person must believe he or she can
succeed at the task. In any given instructional situation, the learning task needs to be presented in
a way that is engaging and meaningful to the student, and in a way that promotes positive
expectations for the successful achievement of learning objectives [17]. To help understand
motivation in instruction we can look at the ARCS Model of Motivational Design as developed
by John M. Keller of Florida State University [9]. The ARCS Model identifies four essential
strategy components for motivating instruction:
[A]ttention strategies for arousing and sustaining curiosity and interest.
- Learners are more motivated when the instructional design generates curiosity and
interest about the content or learning context.
[R]elevance strategies that link to learners' needs, interests, and motives.
- Learners are more motivated when goals are clearly defined and align with learners’
interests.
[C]onfidence strategies that help students develop a positive expectation for successful
achievement.
- Learners are more motivated when challenge is balanced in such a way that the learning
process is neither too easy as to bore the leaner, or too difficult such that success seems
impossible.
[S]atisfaction strategies that provide extrinsic and intrinsic reinforcement for effort.
- Learners are more motivated when there are rewards for correctly executed actions.
Flow
Chan and Ahern [2] suggest Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory as a method for understanding and
implementing motivation. Flow explains a phenomenon that many people find themselves
experiencing when they reach a state where there becomes a perfect balance between challenge
and frustration, and where the end goal becomes so clear that hindrances fall out of view. The
flow theory is a theoretical bridge between the concerns of instructional design and motivational
design theory [2].
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [3], flow is being completely involved in an activity for
its own sake. Consistent with the ARCS model, applications of this theory focus on providing the
learner with appropriate challenge, setting concrete goals, structuring control, and providing
clear feedback [2]. While in flow state, the learner is completely motivated to push their skills to
the limit. In an instructional context, this is a highly desirable state. Csikszentmihalyi [4] states
that, “A flow experience has got to be challenging. Anything that is not up to par is going to be
irritating or ignored.” To learn, students need to be motivated, and an appropriate level of
challenge combined with a clear and attainable goal is highly motivating. Since flow experiences
share these key aspects of motivational design, they can be described as intrinsically motivating.
Learning Environments
Instructional designers can utilize game environments that support flow and enable learning.
Learning environments have been largely limited to the classroom model: the teacher stands in
front of the class and transmits knowledge to a listening group of students. To support a flow
state, a learning environment must closely match each student’s skill level, and provide tasks
with clear goals and immediate individual feedback. Houser and De Loach [7] review Donald
Norman's work: Things that make us Smart. Norman identifies seven basic requirements of a
learning environment:
•Provide a high intensity of interaction and feedback.
•Have specific goals and established procedures.
•Motivate.
•Provide a continual feeling of challenge that is neither so difficult as to create a sense of
hopelessness and frustration, nor so easy as to produce boredom.
•Provide a sense of direct engagement, producing the feeling of directly experiencing the
environment, directly working on the task.
•Provide appropriate tools that fit the user and task so well that they aid and do not
distract.
•Avoid distractions and disruptions that intervene and destroy the subjective experience.
These characteristics of effective learning environments closely match the characteristics
inherent in flow-like experiences and motivational design. Houser and Deloach conclude that if
we accept Norman’s requirements for a learning environment, then we must acknowledge that
learning is integrally related to games. Games make learning look so much like fun that they
mask the large amount of learning required to play them successfully [7].
Play
Gaming environments are quite unlike any other environments we immerse ourselves in because
they allow us to freely do as we please with little or no consequence. If this were all that gaming
environments consisted of, however, they would get very boring very quickly. So then, should
gaming environments be tightly guided, question-answer scenarios with finite end states? Just
like learning environments shouldn’t restrict the learner’s ability to more freely construct
knowledge, the game environment should not restrict the player’s cognitive process but rather
allow the game player to freely make choices that help to reach an end goal.
A game is “a system in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in
a quantifiable outcome.” [16]. The goal of successful game design is the creation of meaningful
‘play’ which is achieved by creating game-play that enables discernable and integrated
interaction by the player [16]. Johann Huizinga [8] defines play as “a free activity standing quite
consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’, but at the same time absorbing the
player intensely and utterly”. Through their use of immersive experiences, games provide
opportunity for play which can result in flow experiences.
Lepper and Malone [11], in an attempt to define specific principles for instructional game design,
illustrate four key attributes that educational games must employ. First, games must introduce
challenge. Through goal reaching and feedback, the learner should continually feel challenged as
difficulty increases in concordance to increased skills. Second, the game should create sensory
and cognitive curiosity within the learner. Third, the learner should feel a sense of control
through endogenous feedback provided by the game. Fourth, games should use fantasy to
reinforces the instructional goals and stimulate the prior interests of the learner.
Through the four lenses of motivation, flow, learning environments, and game design, there are
clear connections that show how learning and gaming are fundamentally built from the same
base. Figure 1 illustrates the commonalities between these four lenses.
Figure 1: Commonalities between the four lenses of motivation, flow,
learning environments, and game design are illustrated horizontally
(Motivation: Keller [9]; Flow: Rieber [15]; Learning Environments:
Houseer & Deloach [7]; Game Design: Lepper & Malone [11]).
EDUCATIONAL GAMING
The diagram below illustrates the potential for well-designed educational games:
Games Play Flow Motivation Learning
Games foster play, which produces a state of flow, which increases motivation, which supports
the learning process. The juncture of learning outcomes with well-designed game mechanics can
result in learning experiences which are intrinsically motivating. The challenge for educational
designers is to build environments where the dynamics of learning are fully integrated with the
dynamics of game-play.
Endogenous Fantasy
Lepper and Malone describe a term called ‘Fantasy’. According to Hoonhout, Diederiks, &
Stienstra [6], fantasy has to do with the scene in which the activity is embedded; this should aim
to intrigue the user, and provide an attractive setting. Fantasy is what players first experience
when they play a game. They see the graphics, hear the sounds, and interact with the world.
Many educational games implement a form of educational ‘sugar coating’ known as exogenous
fantasies [15]. In these types of educational games, the game and all its components are used
merely to improve the educational setting. In contrast, games that employ endogenous fantasies
weave the content into the game. One cannot tell where the game stops and the content begins
[15].
According to Salen and Zimmerman [16], play takes place within a ‘magic circle’. The magic
circle defines the space where the game takes place. It is a finite space with infinite possibility
where the learner is able to suspend all disbelief. Huizinga [8] describes these places as
“temporal worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart”. If
learning takes place outside of the magic circle, the game’s powerful ability to draw the learner
into a state of flow is broken, and the learning becomes an incidental intrusion. In a fully
integrated educational game, ‘stealth learning’ can occur naturally within the context of the game
world [5, 14].
Immersion
Educational game designers therefore need an understanding of how to create games that enable
the learner to enter the magic circle. To enter the magic circle, the learner must immerse
themselves through the pleasurable surrender of the mind to an imaginative world [13]. There are
four essential properties that describe digital environments such as games; digital environments
are procedural, participatory, spatial, and encyclopedic [13]. The latter two of these properties
focus on the concept of immersion. The spatial properties of digital environments can often draw
the learner in by enticing them to enter the space within the game. To create strong spatial
qualities, games use compelling graphics, sound, and physical interaction to help the learner
enter into the gaming world. If the game is encyclopedic enough to respond to the learner’s input
once the learner is immersed within the world, the learner enters into the magic circle. Once
inside the magic circle, outside things do not distract; rather, the learner’s focus is solely on the
game and the events taking place within the game world.
Immersion, although it requires a form of submission to rules, involves a willing suspension of
disbelief and a conscious and voluntary acceptance of the particular conditions of the virtual
environment which, paradoxically, gives its players in return unrestricted access to possibilities
for full participation [5]. De Castell & Jenson argue that educational games are not immersive for
two reasons. First, educational games typically do not connect game-play elements with content
and context elements. Second, educational games do not permit or support freedom of movement
in space [5]. Both these reasons focus on the exogenous tendencies of educational games of the
past. Educational game design must focus on intersecting play and education so that the magic
circle is kept closed and immersion can take place.
REFLECTION
The educational possibilities that videogames provide are similar to those known in ‘active
learning’. Active learning is student participation in the learning and teaching process, where
students themselves engage with and, to an extent, create their own learning experience. This
learning strategy emphasizes the process of ‘reflection’, that is, purposeful and critical thought
that leads to an idea being developed or taken forward in some way [12]. Rather than a linear
process, learning, follows a cyclic pattern: experiencing, reflecting on that experience, drawing
conclusions based on these reflections, forming a plan for new action based on these conclusions,
then acting again, and so on [10]. Reflection is an important part of the cycle. Without reflection
the cycle is unable to effectively lead to new conclusions and action.
One of the difficulties with flow experiences is the lack of reflection that is able to take place
while one is in this state. Though someone may be pushing their skills to the limit, they may not
be reflecting on their experience and are therefore limiting what they can learn from it. While in
a state of flow or while play a game, learning is made possible through the use of concrete goals.
To prevent the learner from wandering around aimlessly, a game creates goals that the user must
meet before being able to progress. While playing the game, the learner may enter the magic
circle and take on the responsibility of reaching specific goals without ever reflecting on the
strategies used to reach these goals. Though the act of gaining knowledge or skill may take place,
learning is not fully realized unless the player reflects on the events that took place during the
experience.
If the play must be broken up by a reflection period, it would seem that the magic circle can no
longer exist and any advantages gained by using game strategies are futile. The solution to this
problem lies in the endogenous implementation of reflection. In educational game design it is
important to ensure that learning takes places within the realm of play, even if learning is only
made possible through reflection. To do so, reflection must appear to the learner as one of the
many in-game goals that drive the game-play.
Take, for example, the design of an educational hockey game that teaches about mild traumatic
head injury (concussion). In this game, learners take on a first-person perspective and play
hockey while ensuring that they stay healthy by taking rests when they notice that they might be
experiencing symptoms of concussion. Managing rest and play is simply another game-play
variable that the players must interactive with. Players that engage in concussive activities are
forced to sit for a while and consider the seriousness and the implications of concussion effects,
just a player would be forced to sit in a live hockey game. The act of reflection is incorporated
into both the core mechanics of the game, and the fantasy experience of the game world. During
the reflection period, it is likely that the player will not exit the magic circle, and the reflection
period will encourage the player to learn how to play better, safer hockey. This is an example of
an integrated design approach that reconciles flow, learning, and endogenous motivation within
an immersive game experience.
REFERENCES
1. Chamberlin, J. “Reaching ‘flow’ to optimize work and play,” American Psychological Association vol. 29, no. 7
Available at: http://www.apa.org/monitor/jul98/joy.html.
2. Chan, T. S., & Ahern, T. C. “Targeting motivation – adapting flow theory to instructional design,” Journal of
Educational Computing Research, 21 (2), 152-163.
3. Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.
4. Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Geirland, J. “Go With the Flow,” Wired Magazine (1996). Available at:
http://hotwired.wired.com/collections/web_development/4.09_csik_pr.html
5. De Castell, S., & Jenson, J. (2003). Serious Play. Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol. 35, No. 6, 649-665.
6. Hoonhout, J., Diederiks, E. & Stienstra, M. “Designing fun, and test it too,” Usability Professionals’ Association,
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http://www.upassoc.org/conferences_and_events/upa_conference/2004/program/Workshops/DesigningFun.html
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Communication (August, 1998), pp. 319-329.
8. Huizinga, Johann. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.
9. Keller, J. M. “Motivational design of instruction,” In C.M. Reigeluth (Ed.). “Instructional design theories and
models: An overview of their current status,” Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1983.
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13. Murray, J. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: The Free Press, 1997.
14. Prensky, M. Digital Game-Based Learning. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
15. Rieber, L. P. “Seriously considering play: Designing interactive learning environments based on the blending of
microworlds, simulations, and games,” Educational Technology Research and Development 44(2) (1996), pp.43-58.
16. Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
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... game mechanics motivation and learning principle the challenges and objectives, actions and responses, and feedback can pertain to gaming, to learning (Arnab et al., 2015;Carvalho et al., 2015;Ke, 2016;Malone & Lepper, 1987) game flow principle through playing a game, the player will become better at the playing the game and to maintain sufficient challenge (while avoiding boredom and anxiety), gameplay must increase in difficulty as the player progresses (theory of flow) (Hamari et al., 2016;Paras & Bizzocchi, 2005;Schell, 2019) challenge motivation and learning principle challenge provided by the system affects learning through increased engagement as well as directly (Hamari et al., 2016;Malone & Lepper, 1987) (Sun- Lin & Chiou, 2017) cognitive load principle complex gameplay involving choices with many possibilities must be avoided to avoid cognitive overload of the learner (Veenman et al., 2006) (Azevedo et al., 2012;Kalyuga & Plass, 2009) (4) To what extent is the game fidelitous to or fictitious about representing the target learning situation? ...
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Thesis
Full-text available
  • Mar 2024
One of the most influential determinants of efficient and effective learning is metacognition: the knowledge a learner has about how they learn, and the skills to use that knowledge to monitor and regulate learning. As not all learners within higher education are equally or sufficiently apt in metacognition, providing metacognitive training is a very effective way of improving current and future learning skills and, in turn, learning performance. Metacognitive training must be active (for learners to understand and be able to apply metacognition to learning) as well as engaging (for learners to put in the additional effort over a longer period of time). In this dissertation, we examine how game-based learning (GBL), as a technique to harness learning and motivation in a self-contained game-based learning environment (GBLE), can be leveraged for metacognitive training. 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Full-text available
  • Mar 2024
Many undergraduate students hold robust misconceptions about the emergent nature of molecular processes, believing them to be directed rather than random. Interactive simulations might help transform such misconceptions by visualizing stochastic processes in a time-independent medium and enabling students to manipulate the environment to test their naïve hypotheses. Furthermore, game-based learning (GBL) might enhance the effectiveness of such simulations by promoting productive negativity (PN), i.e., learning from failure. In a randomized controlled trial with pre-test, post-test and delayed one-year follow-up, undergraduates (n = 84) engaged with either a GBL or interactive simulation (SIM) environment for 20–45 min and were compared to a baseline group (n = 138). GBL (p = 0.035) and SIM (p = 0.069) resolved more misconceptions than baseline but did not differ from each other (p = 0.992). GBL group also trended toward more positive long-term conceptual change. In-game interactions generated in response to PN were predictive of conceptual change in the GBL group alone, suggesting that PN may only be effective when supported by game design. Participants’ native English-speaking status had a moderating effect, with native-speakers performing well in GBL and poorly in SIM environment, while the opposite was true for non-native-speakers, which, as discussed herein, may be aligned with cultural differences in acceptability of GBL. The GBL intervention generated longer voluntary use (p = 0.005), especially amongst frequent game-players. The results inform how GBL/SIM approaches can implement PN as a mechanism for conceptual change about molecular emergence.
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... When people are intrinsically motivated to learn, they don't just learn more, they also have more positive experiences [10]. According to Paras [11], while the game environment has a lot of potential to be involved in the process of acquiring this knowledge or skill, learners must be engaged. The use of educational games as learning medium can also stimulate users to discover and improve their knowledge of learning, as can be inferred from these assertions. ...
DEVELOPMENT OF A DIGITAL SNAKE AND LADDER GAME AS A STRATEGIC INTERVENTION MATERIAL FOR BASIC EDUCATION
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2023
Digital game-based learning (DGBL) applications enable learners to learn and play. The usage of DGBL as a learning tool might also motivate users to expand their understanding of learning. The goal of this study was to design and develop a digital game-based learning application called E-Snake and Ladder Game that can be used as a strategic intervention material for teaching various subjects. It is a digitized snake and ladder game where subjects and quizzes were incorporated to achieve the goal of the study. The game was evaluated by 20 teachers and 80 students using the MEEGA+ model, the game evaluation has proven to be satisfactory to the players and it is easy to learn and play while promoting fun and relaxing gameplay and providing educational value.
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... Historically, however, video games in the classroom have been used as an innovation to offer pupils rewards and motivation (Sailer et al., 2017), or as a tool for practicing for standardized tests (Cheung & Ng, 2021). Paras and Bizzocchi (2005) stated that video games were once used as a rewarding mechanism or as a tool to assist students with performing better on exams. Squire (2003) concurs with scholars that traditionally, video games, when used for educational purposes, are nothing more than drill and practice exercises to reinform classroomtaught concepts. ...
User-Design: An Enabling Method of Video Game Making
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2023
The goal of this study was to investigate the experiences of five undergraduates majoring in communications media at a medium-sized university as they created their own computer games. To analyze the data, I utilized the constant comparison method. After a thorough analysis of the phenomenon of user design, I identified three themes through qualitative analysis: User design fosters creativity and empowerment, User design can be challenging and serve as a design tool, and User design provides a rewarding learning experience.
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... 21 Flow is also a state where learners are completely motivated to push their skills to the limit when provided with the appropriate level of challenge, concrete goals, and structuring control. 31 More so, the challenge is also described as the feeling of being challenged and is related to achievement, an important motive for playing games. These parameters highlight the positive game experience of the users in terms of their interaction with the developed game. ...
Go Carb Deck: A Card Game for Teaching Classification of Simple Monosaccharides
Article
  • Nov 2023
One approach that has been gaining significant attention among chemistry education scholars and practitioners is the employment of game-based learning to teach least-learned and difficult topics at various educational levels. One reason for this is that it promotes active, constructive learning and makes learning science a fun experience through educational games. As such, this study aims to design, develop, and evaluate a card game that can be used to teach the classification of simple monosaccharides to high school students. The developed card game was tested on a class of high school students to investigate the improvement in their academic achievement. Player experience was also evaluated using an adopted game experience questionnaire that explored three components: in-game, postgame, and social presence experience. The results showed significant improvements in academic achievement (t(45) = −11.97, p = 0.00001, d = 2.55) which implies that the developed card game can be used as teaching material on classifying simple monosaccharides. Results also demonstrate that the students were immersed, challenged, and in flow and had a positive affect while minimal tiredness and negative experience were reported. Students also reported high empathy and behavioral involvement after playing the game. These results, while preliminary, provide important clues on how games and gameful experiences can serve as the basis for developing educational games to teach abstract concepts in chemistry in a fun and challenging way.
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... Salen and Zimmerman (2003) add that games have pre-established rules and measurable outcomes, and players experience the process by solving a problem or facing a challenge together. Educational games, developed to impart a learning objective to individuals, support students' motivation in the learning process, providing them with a flow state (Paras & Bizzocchi, 2005). ...
Designing a Digital Escape Room Game: An Experience of a Digital Learning Tool in Basic Education
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2023
The study aims to explore the perspectives of primary school teacher candidates who attend Turkish Language Teaching courses on their experiences of developing digital educational escape room games (DEERGs). Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The study group comprised 48 primary school teacher candidates who were reached by the easily accessible sampling method. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher and DEERGs designed by the participants were used as data collection tools. In the 14-week study, interviews were conducted with the Microsoft Teams program. The findings were analyzed from a holistic perspective using content analysis. Results; showed that the participants preferred Google Forms and Genially tools in game design, and they benefited from Web 2.0 tools. In mother tongue teaching, games for reading and writing skills were designed, and mostly primary school and 4th-grade achievements were selected. It has been seen that they consider areas of interest, individual differences, and constructs that support cognitive-emotional and skill development in scripting. It has been emphasized that DEERGs contribute to attention, focus, maintaining and motivating learning, problem-solving, developing a positive attitude towards the lesson, and learning by having fun.
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... We therefore emphasise that while RIOR offers a unique design disruption to encourage perspective shifting through immersive estrangement, re-examination and repatterning of knowledge, design decisions must be balanced with usability measures to ensure high acceptability. The POVR experience may have also been acceptable because of the non-realistic visual stylization and immersive estrangement contributing to the willing suspension of disbelief [4], where users believed the virtual environment without rejection [90]. However, our participants noted they would not recommend POVR to those who are less tech-literate. ...
POVR: Designing an immersive experience for generating moments of self-reflection at home
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Dec 2023
Everyday reflection has benefits, however, learning how to reflect every day at home can be difficult. We explore how immersive technologies may be designed to generate meaningful narratives for reflection. We draw inspiration from the Brechtian theatre to embed the "RIOR" conceptual model (Readiness for reflection, Immersive estrangement, Observation and re-examination, Repatterning of knowledge). We designed POVR, a desktop computer prototype, through a novel participatory process with six participants. POVR enables self-observation and a practice of care through anchoring mundane tasks, and techniques like perspective taking to examine our relationship to spatial and affective decluttering. Testing POVR with fifteen participants highlighted the importance of balancing narrative and ambiguity in meaningful ways for transformative reflective experiences. Findings show that reflection can be feasibly supported in immersive environments through theatre techniques represented in the RIOR model. We discuss lessons learned and provide strategic recommendations for grounding this unique model in future work. ------------------------------------------------------------ [link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OY5YcBkNUo ]
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... The concept of flow has since been used as the overarching concept of optimal (fully immersed) experiences in play, games, learning and work (see e.g. Chan & Ahern, 1999;Engeser & Rheinberg, 2008;Paras, 2005;Thomson & Jaque, 2016;Warren & Donaldson, 2017;Whalen & Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). ...
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Learning from Games: Seven Principles of Effective Design
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 1998
  • TECH COMMUN-STC
Describes design principles found in games that contribute to more usable applications ◆ Provides examples from several games to illustrate these seven principles ◆ Argues that games set a significant direction for effective interface design.
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Serious Play: Curriculum for a Post-Talk Era1
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2003
Cet article propose une reflexion sur la perspective d'un enseignement ludique et divertissant s'appuyant sur l'exemple des jeux (non educatifs) commerciaux et dont la cible pourrait etre ces memes joueurs.
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Targeting motivation: Adapting flow theory to instructional design
Article
  • Jan 1999
  • J Educ Comput Res
Flow theory identifies several structural variables that can be manipulated by an instructional designer. Modifying these variables may cause an increase in the likelihood that a learner will be motivated to continue with the lesson. While some researchers suggest activity contents, such as challenge and goal and induce flow experience [1], others hypothesize flow is enhanced by vividness and interactivity of the presentation [2]. This study investigates the effect of activity content, its presentation, and the interactions between the two on flow experience (intrinsic motivation) in instructional activity. The results suggested that the activity content has major influences on motivation, but presentation is a double-edge sword. Hypermedia presentation adds appeals to instructions that motivate students if they are used appropriately. When the content relevance is complicated, complex presentations can be distracting. Consequently, hypermedia elements should be used sparingly at the beginning of a lesson when challenges are high and students are unfamiliar with the material. As the lesson progresses it could be used gradually as the content challenges are reduced.
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Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace
Article
  • Jun 1999
  • Mod Fict Stud
Modern Fiction Studies 45.2 (1999) 553-556 The title of this book perhaps looks merely catchy but is cogent to its argument: that compelling narratives from antiquity to the present, whether classical or popular, are perennial, but that the medium of narration changes in time and new narrative opportunities appear with emerging technologies. Fans of Star Trek will recognize the "holodeck" in question as a "universal fantasy machine," allowing a living person to enter into a world of story as if it were 3-D reality. At present the holodeck exists only in fiction, but Janet Murray examines in detail the way narratives produced in digital formats have begun to simulate imaginary worlds in which one can become immersed as an agent who has the power to transform a course of action. The author optimistically predicts that an emerging cyberdrama "need not resemble Huxley 'feelies'," in Brave New World, but can offer "satisfactions continuous with those we receive from established narrative formats," and perhaps the originality we recognize as art. Arguing strongly against the view that newer forms of expression are intrinsically inferior to earlier ones -- that film is inferior to drama, for example -- she asserts that we have focused inappropriately on the worth of various media in the last quarter century when we should instead have acknowledged "a general crisis in meaning." Finally, Murray is not asking if Hamlet will play on the holodeck but if in cyberspace we can attain to an artistic truth equivalent to that achieved by Shakespeare on the Elizabethan stage. Hamlet on the Holodeck takes a long view of the technologies of narrative, pre- and post-Gutenberg, paying particular attention to forms of storytelling that seem to anticipate and legitimate those emerging in cyberspace, for example, those that play with the border between fiction and reality, those requiring the active participation of an audience, or those offering alternative plotlines. Reminding us that books printed before 1501 are called "incunabula," from the Latin word for swaddling clothes, Murray sets the stage for a detailed discussion of largely experimental composition on the narrative computer, "a technology still in its infancy." At considerable length she examines storytelling in electronic games, such as Mortal Kombat, role-playing in virtual environments on the Internet called MUDs and MOOs, dialogue engendered by ELIZA and her daughters, computer programs capable of responding to simple typed questions, and interactive stories composed by Murray's own students at MIT. It is a strength of this book that Murray, trained as a Victorian scholar and a teacher of humanities for many years, brings to her study of electronic composition an Aristotelian sense of analytic categories and writes about new media with great clarity. Less satisfactory to this reader is her antipathy to contemporary theorists whom she sums up inaccurately as "denouncing meaning as something to be deconstructed into absurdity." Aversion to much postmodern theory, together with a conviction that we stand in the "infancy" of electronic writing, leads to a slighting of sophisticated work by hypertext writer-theorists such as Michael Joyce and Stuart Moulthrop and somewhat overextended appreciation of such phenomena as electronic games and the authorship of chatterbots (computer-generated "characters" programmed to mimic speech, or at least certain verbal tics). Though computer-generated characters may at this moment appear merely fanciful, the aim of their creators is to achieve what computer scientists call "emergent behavior," the ability to go beyond what these characters have been programmed to do. At present still an "exciting possibility," machines that exhibit emergence will bring us, Murray believes, to "a new threshold in our ability to represent complex systems . . . whether thermodynamics, war strategies, or human behavior." The imaginative artist of cyberspace narrative will be a "procedural author," one who, godlike, defines rules of action rather than determining behavior itself. Relying strongly on analogy with past success in narrative form, Murray argues that successful cybernarrative must establish its own conventions, "rules by which things should happen," and structures for...
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Seriously Considering Play: Designing Interactive Learning Environments Based on the Blending of Microworlds, Simulations, and Games
Article
  • Jan 1996
Little attention has been given to the psychological and sociological value of play despite its many advantages to guiding the design of interactive multimedia learning environments for children and adults. This paper provides a brief overview of the history, research, and theory related to play. Research from education, psychology, and anthropology suggests that play is a powerful mediator for learning throughout a person's life. The time has come to couple the ever increasing processing capabilities of computers with the advantages of play. The design of hybrid interactive learning environments is suggested based on the constructivist concept of a microworld and supported with elements of both games and simulations.
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