Motivating children to learn effectively: exploring the value of intrinsic integration in educational games

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

Linking engagement and performance: The social network analysis perspective

Theories developed by Tinto and Nora identify academic performance, learning gains, and involvement in learning communities as significant facets of student engagement that, in turn, support student persistence. Collaborative learning environments, such as those employed in the Modeling Instruction introductory physics course, provide structure for student engagement by encouraging peer-to-peer interactions. Because of the inherently social nature of collaborative learning, we examine student interactions in the classroom using network analysis. We use centrality---a family of measures that quantify how connected or "central" a particular student is within the classroom network---to study student engagement longitudinally. Bootstrapped linear regression modeling shows that students' centrality predicts future academic performance over and above prior GPA for three out of four centrality measures tested. In particular, we find that closeness centrality explains 28 % more of the variance than prior GPA alone. These results confirm that student engagement in the classroom is critical to supporting academic performance. Furthermore, we find that this relationship for social interactions does not emerge until the second half of the semester, suggesting that classroom community develops over time in a meaningful way

From participation to dropout

The academic e-learning practice has to deal with various participation patterns and types of online learners with different support needs. The online instructors are challenged to recognize these and react accordingly. Among the participation patterns, special attention is requested by dropouts, which can perturbate online collaboration. Therefore we are in search of a method of early identification of participation patterns and prediction of dropouts. To do this, we use a quantitative view of participation that takes into account only observable variables. On this background we identify in a field study the participation indicators that are relevant for the course completion, i.e. produce significant differences between the completion and dropout sub-groups. Further we identify through cluster analysis four participation patterns with different support needs. One of them is the dropout cluster that could be predicted with an accuracy of nearly 80%. As a practical consequence, this study recommends a simple, easy-to-implement prediction method for dropouts, which can improve online teaching. As a theoretical consequence, we underline the role of the course didactics for the definition of participation, and call for refining previous attrition models

Impact of online learning on student effort and persistence in technical college students

Includes bibliographical references

Cyber Buddy is Better than No Buddy: A Test of the Köhler Motivation Effect in Exergames.

Objective: Although exergames are popular, few people take advantage of the potential of group dynamics to motivate play (and achieve associated health bene?ts). One motivation gain phenomenon has shown promise for motivating greater effort in partnered exergames: The Koehler effect (working at a task with a more capable partner where one’s performance is indispensable to the group). This article examines whether a Koehler effect can be demonstrated in an exergame by exercising with a moderately superior humanoid, software-generated partner. Materials and Methods: Male and female (n = 120; mean age, 19.41 years) college students completed a series of plank exercises using ‘‘CyBuddy Exercise,’’ a program developed speci?cally for this study. In a lab in an academic building, participants completed the exercises individually and, after a rest, were randomly assigned to complete the same exercises again, but with a ‘‘live’’ human partner (HP) presented virtually, a nearlyhuman-like, humanoid partner (NHP), a hardly human-like, software-generated partner (HHP), or a no-partner control condition (IC), with equal numbers in each group (i.e., n = 30). Exercise persistence, perceived exertion, self-ef?cacy beliefs, enjoyment, and intentions to exercise were recorded and analyzed. Results: A 4X2 analysis of variance on the (Block 2 – Block 1) difference scores showed that a signi?cant Koehler motivation gain was observed in all partner conditions (compared with IC), but persistence was signi?cantly greater with HPs than with either NHP or HHP humanoid partners (P < 0.05). By the conclusion of the study, there were no signi?cant differences among the partnered conditions in perceived exertion, self-ef?cacy, enjoyment, or future intentions to exercise. Conclusions: These results suggest that a software-generated partner can elicit the Koehler motivation gain in exergames, but not as strongly as a partner who is thought to be human

Exploring the potential impact of relational coherence on persistent rule-following : the first study

Rule-governed behavior and derived relational responding have both been identified as important variables in human learning. Recent developments in the relational frame theory (RFT) have outlined a number of key variables of potential importance when analyzing the dynamics involved in derived relational responding. Recent research has explored the impact of one of these variables, level of derivation, on persistent rule-following and implicated another, coherence, as possibly important. However, no research to date has examined the impact of coherence on persistent rule-following directly. Across two experiments, coherence was manipulated through the systematic use of performance feedback, and its impact was examined on persistent rule-following. A training procedure based on the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) was used to establish novel combinatorially entailed relations that manipulated the feedback provided on the trained relations (A-B and B-C) in Experiment 1, and on the untrained, derived relations (A-C) in Experiment 2. One of these relations was then inserted into the rule for responding on a subsequent contingency-switching match-to-sample (MTS) task to assess rule persistence. While no significant differences were found in Experiment 1, the provision or non-provision of feedback had a significant differential impact on rule-persistence in Experiment 2. Specifically, participants in the Feedback group resurged back to the original rule for significantly more responses after demonstrating contingency-sensitive responding than did the No-Feedback group, after the contingency reversal. The results highlight the subtle complexities that appear to be involved in persistent rule-following in the face of reversed reinforcement contingencies

Toward Informative Assessment and a Culture of Evidence

Examines how campuses in the Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges initiative combined traditional and innovative measures of student performance such as "think-aloud" protocol and pre-post testing to improve teaching and learning