Archive for September 2013

Why am I here? – Motivations for playing games online

Yee (2013) conducted a study to investigation players motivation for MMORPGs. Early he critics the lack of empirical data behind Bartle’s Player types. Noting that the player types were not mutually exclusive and in fact have a significant degree of crossover. Yee opted for a factor analytic approach, “Players used a five-point fully labelled construct-specific scale to respond” to a 40 question survey.

The Results

Yee (2013) exposed the following factors and sub components in motivation. Noting the the data identified that a high score in one factor did not suppress a high score in another factor.

Achievement Social Immersion
Advancement – Progress, Power, Accumulation, Status
Mechanics – Numbers, Optimization, Templating, Analysis
Competition – Challenging Others, Provocation, Domination
Socializing – Casual Chat, Helping Others, Making Friends
Relationship – Self-Disclosure, Find and Give Support
Teamwork – Collaboration, Groups, Group Achievements
Discovery – Exploration, Lore, Finding Hidden Things
Role-Playing – Story Line, Character History, Roles, Fantasy
Customization – Appearances, Accessories, Style, Colour Schemes
Escapism – Relax, Escape from Real Life, Avoid Real-Life Problems

 

References
Yee, N (2006) Motivation for Play in Online Games, Cyber Psychology and Behavior. Volume 9, issue 6. pp 772-775.

My Research Journey Levels Up

Last week I made the decision to embark upon the process of doing a Masters degree with the University of Wollongong. I emailed a potential supervisor, hoping for a positive response. He agreed to meet with me to discuss my topic. On Friday I spent an hour polishing the long list of notes and dot points I had been accumulating whilst mulling over the idea of a research degree. I was reasonably happy with the first draft of what looked like an ok research proposal. No doubt if the potential supervisor likes it, then it will be ripped to shreds with the editing and refining process.

Motivating Learners – Just add badges right?

Reading through Play As You Learn: Gamification as a Technique for Motivating Learners (2013) by Ian Glover gives an overview of the current state of gamification, with particular relevance to  education. Glover first states the three basic parts of most games:

  • Goal-focused activity
  • Reward mechanics
  • Progress tracking

Glover then notes some current uses of gamification including popular social network FourSquare.

Eventually gets to the good stuff, and touches on some criticism of gamification. These included the detriment of providing extrinsic rewards for learners who are intrinsically motivated, the addictive behaviours often associated with certain personality types (notes from Zichermann, 2011), the competitiveness of leaderboards (Williams, 2012), and the types of engagement when gamification is removed (Thoma, Millen, and DiMicco, 2012).

Glover’s main points include the following

  • Careful consideration needs to be taken before the application of gamification to learning
  • Providing extrinsic motivation for intrinsically motivated learners is detrimental
  • Gamification in earning should therefore be optional
  • Popular Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and LMSs (Learning Management Systems) provide an ideal opportunity, with tracking data already available
  • Rewards need to be desirable to all learner to motivate behavior
  • Gamifiation can be applied to non-electronic contexts

 

My references

Glover, Ian (2013) Play as you learn: gamification as a technique for motivating learners. In: HERRINGTON, Jan, COUROS, Alec and IRVINE, Valerie, (eds.) Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2013. Chesapeake, VA, AACE , 1999-2008. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/7172/

 

Glover’s References
Thom, J., Millen, D., & DiMicco, J. (2012). Removing gamification from an enterprise SNS. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ’12), 1067-1070. Accessed: 27/11/2012 -http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2145204.2145362.

Williams, J. (2012). The Gamification Brain Trust: Intrinsically Motivating People to Change Behavior (part 2). Gamesbeat, Panel discussion, Wallace, M. [chair], Accessed: 26/11/2012 – http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/22/the-gamification-brain-trustintrinsically-motivating-people-to-change-behavior-part-2/#h8geQcI5BUyR5Ihv.99

Zichermann, G. (2011). Gamification has issues, but they aren’t the ones everyone focuses on. [Editorial] O’Reilly Radar. Accessed: 26/11/2012 – http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/06/gamification-criticism-overjustification-ownership-addiction.html