Act I - The Magic of Games
Games are having a moment. Video games, in particular, are more engaging than ever, but board games are experiencing a Cambrian explosion, too.
Almost everyone plays games. Children and teenagers are obsessed with making masterpieces in Minecraft or designing and playing their own creations in Roblox. Adults relax for countless hours playing cozy games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, or get lost exploring in games in the Legend of Zelda series. Then there's the unmatched pull of games on smartphones; these mobile monsters cause us to lose so much time.
What is it about games that enrapture us so? Why is it that we will spend so much of our free time solving challenges and completing tasks that don't matter to our lives?
It's the feelings that games give us. It's the feeling that our choices matter, even to a virtual character or made up world. It's that we can tangibly experience ourselves getting better even when we fail at a task or challenge. It's the connections we feel as we play with others, contribute to communities revolving around the game, or even the emotional payoffs we have from helping non-player characters (NPCs) in the game.
It's these feelings ‐ autonomy, competence, and ‐ that form the foundations of motivation.
Act II - The Psychology of Motivation
This framework of motivation is called Self-Determination Theory and it was developed by Deci & Ryan, 2000. According to this theory humans learn best (and in general tend to thrive) when three main needs are met:
- Autonomy: The feeling that we have the freedom to make meaningful choices.
- Competence: The feeling that we can grow and improve.
- : The feeling that we belong or connect to others.
When these needs are sufficiently met, then people are more easily able to reach a state of psychological flow. This flow state is the same one discussed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, in which people easily lose track of time and challenges feel fun, especially if they are scaffolded well for our abilities.
On the other hand, when these needs are not met, engagement becomes shallow and more externally focused. In other words, when people feel enough autonomy, competence, and relatedness, they develop intrinsic motivation, where they enjoy the activity for the sake of the activity. However, when they don't, they are more likely to develop extrinsic motivation, which still gets them to do the activity, but only (or primarily) for the reward offered during or after completion.
Act III - Gamification versus Gamefulness
Gamification seeks to make use of game elements in non-game contexts (Deterding et al., 2011a; Deterding et al., 2011b), like classrooms and workshops.
While it sounds great on the surface (add points and badges to make a topic more fun), it's important to be intentional about applying these game elements.
Gamification gone wrong can lead us down a road toward building what game designer Ian Bogost calls "exploitationware" (Bogost, 2011). Shallow implementations, like grafting on points and badges without much thought, can lead to disengagement and extrinsic motivation.
Gamification done well, on the other hand, is more aligned with something called gamefulness or gameful learning. This is something closer to what Karl Kapp focuses on in his research and books (Kapp, as cited by Bevins & Howard, 2018). In gameful learning, the gamification system is constructed in such a way that emphasizes the components of intrinsic motivation: autonomy, competence, and .
This concept of gameful learning is core to the framework proposed by Proulx et al. (2017). In their paper, they link a variety of game mechanics to the needs of Self-Determination Theory.
This explorable explanation seeks to build on Proulx et al. (2017)'s work by:
- Contrasting shallow and meaningful implementations of select game mechanics as they relate to different psychological needs.
- Sharing non-digital "recipes" that educators can adapt and implement into their own classrooms.
- Experimenting with the game mechanics by making them come to life through play.
Act IV - Bridging Games, Learning, and Motivation
Below, you'll find a table/matrix. On the left side are our Game Mechanics and along the top we see our Self-Determination Theory Needs.
Each cell represents a choice that we have as instructional designers. We can choose to nurture intrinsic motivation through what I'm calling a meaningful implementation or we can hinder it through a shallow implementation.
In the next Act, you'll get to explore the game mechanics in any order.
| Self-Determination Theory (SDT) Need | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Mechanic | Autonomy | Competence | Relatedness |
| Points | |||
| Badges | |||
| Progression | |||
| Story | |||
| Co-Design | |||
| Collaboration | |||
| Competition | |||
| Role-Play | |||
Act V - Implementing Game Mechanics
Select one of the game mechanics below to see information about it:
🚧 Section under construction - Coming soon 🚧
Act VI - Gameful Design
As we saw above, each game mechanic can be implemented in meaningful or shallow ways. The trick is the intentionality behind their design.
Gameful design doesn't have to involve digital tools since many of these game mechanics can be implemented using paper prototypes, discussions, or other analog media and methods. Please take a look at and modify any of the "non-digital recipes" that resonate with you.
But arguably, the most important part of design is empathy; designing for learners depends on how they each (and collectively) experience autonomy, competence, and . When we design our environments (e.g., classrooms, trainings, etc.) to intentionally foster choice, mastery, and connection, we're not only helping our learners learn better, we're helping them thrive as human beings.
I'll leave you with one final question:
How might you pursue intrinsic motivation in your own learning spaces?
Thank you so much for reading!
References
- Bevins, K. L., & Howard, C. D. (2018). Game mechanics and why they are employed: What we know about gamification so far. Issues and Trends in Learning Technologies, 6(1).
- Bogost, I. (2011, May 3). Persuasive Games: Exploitationware. Game Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/persuasive-games-exploitationware
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The" what" and" why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.
- Deterding, S., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., O'hara, K., & Dixon, D. (2011). Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts. In CHI'11 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 2425-2428).
- Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011, September). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining" gamification". In Proceedings of the 15th international academic MindTrek conference: Envisioning future media environments (pp. 9-15).
- Proulx, J. N., Romero, M., & Arnab, S. (2017). Learning mechanics and game mechanics under the perspective of self-determination theory to foster motivation in digital game based learning. Simulation & Gaming, 48(1), 81-97.