Information Technology Reference
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due to his or her actions and the player needs to figure out the appropriate response
to avoid failure.
Another aspect of game play that contributes to increasing and sustaining player
motivation are goals. Goals provide a sense of accomplishment, track progression,
indicate increase in difficulty, and organize game content in the form of objectives.
For the player, completing a goal creates a sense the player has made decisions and
taken action which led to the successful completion; the goal must contain a chal-
lenge for the player to overcome. Goals are a means by which the player tracks
progression and is able to see a history of accomplishments. This history of pro-
gression can be used for reflection as well as preparing and scaffolding content to
more complex situations. Goals are also an organizational function which helps to
group content according to the objectives of the game.
Goals are represented in many different forms and can be used simultaneously,
such as scoring mechanism, gear, leveling, and actions, and can provide differ-
ent types of motivation for different players. The flexibility of goals in games can
change over time and through the course of game play providing an opportunity to
motivate different players for different reasons in the same game. However, what-
ever the game design, goals, and subgoals contribute toward the end goal and the
feedback provided enhances the player's experience to understand the context of
the game.
One essential difference in motivation between e-learning and video games is
required and voluntary participation. Mandatory e-learning courses are not uncom-
mon and video games rarely, if ever, are considered a requirement. For required
courseware, the consequence of forced rather than voluntary participation may have
a significant drawback on the effectiveness of game design methods over tradi-
tional e-learning design. Learning that takes place in commercial video game play
is voluntary and quickly abandoned without consequence by players if it proves not
to be a good fit. E-learning, when considered from this perspective, may be at a
disadvantage. However, given this difference in participation, there are conceptual
shifts in perspective as it pertains to motivation from which e-learning design could
benefit from. While designing user interactions within context, embedding feed-
back and goal-based instruction are not new concepts to e-learning, the approach in
the design of these elements could improve learner engagement through increased
motivation.
How the learner interacts with the content of an e-learning course has just as
much impact on the learner as it does in games. The difference in approach is learner
interactions often consist of clicking “next.” Even interactions such as a drag-n-drop
exercise are mechanical because the learner interaction is segmented from the rest of
the content, not embedded in a continuous flow of interactions cohered by an overall
objective. This produces a detrimental difference in the learner interpretation of the
interactions; when not interacting with the content, the learner is interacting with the
machine. In games, nondiegetic actions are balanced with diegetic acts depending
on the type of content, this controls the degree to which the player is aware of his or
her interaction with the machine as opposed to the content. Designing interactions
that are motivating in games is more than just defining the mechanical requirements
