Games+Learning+Society 12 Conference

I Choose…This One! Exploring Student Motivation in Response to Assignment Choice
Plummer, Holman, & Fishman

Giving students choices regarding their work is a core principle of gameful course design. Increasing autonomy should support intrinsic motivation, and enable students to increase their competence by creating a safe context in which to try new and challenging tasks. We analyzed the implementation of assignment choice in three large undergraduate gameful courses. Each course featured a different style and degree of support for student autonomy, and these variations related to differences observed in student attitudes. Students’ answers on open-response survey questions shed light on the underlying reasons for these differences. We discuss the implications of our findings and identify next steps to guide the design of gameful courses.

From “So Cool” to “I’m Bored:” Longitudinal Trends in Activity Monitors and Gaming
Hagood & Ching

To integrate gaming and physical activity among youth (ages 13 and 14), activity monitors were used to track 42 participants’ physical activity throughout the day and in-turn integrate activity information into a virtual game world. In this analysis of fitbit log data, random-effects growth curve analyses are used to model the general activity trend. A two-phase model is introduced that explores how activity changes before versus after the game is introduced. This quantitative analysis of activity trends is interpreted using extensive participant interviews. The paper concludes by making the case that game and physical data analytics necessitate compatible qualitative research designs.

Tenacious Assessments: Using In-Game Behaviors to Measure Student Persistence and Challenge Navigation
Malkiewich, Lee, Slater, Chase

Game log data provides a unique opportunity to study student gaming behavior, and how it relates to learning. Behaviors that are particularly interesting include how students persist and navigate challenges in an educational game context. Literature has investigated embedded assessments for learning in games, but there is less work on measuring student persistence and challenge approach and response behaviors, specifically in games. This paper explores a variety of student persistence and challenge navigation measures based on student in-game behaviors taken from log data. Some measures are highly correlated with student learning from the game, and a classical measure of student persistence. Results suggest new ways of measuring students’ motivational behaviors in games provide much more fine-grained data than traditional assessments of motivation and can be used to assess positive student learning behaviors during gameplay.