Emerging practice with games-based learning - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 68

understanding' (Hromek and Roffey 2009: 630). Moreover, fun and humour stimu-
late creativity as the 'brain moves from a cognitive, rule-bound state to a more fluid,
relaxed state where the whole body is engaged in problem solving' (Hromek and
Roffey 2009: 630). This highlights the holistic nature of 'playing' and how the affective
domain can be engaged alongside the cognitive and behavioural to affect creativity
for learning through game play.
Looking at the role of positive emotions, psychologists Fredrickson and Joiner
(2002) argue that these broaden the capacity to learn and enhance optimistic think-
ing, which leads to more creative problem-solving capacities. Games can engender
positive feelings when winning or solving a problem or completing a challenge and
result in joyful experiences (affective), which in turn trigger and stimulate creative
problem-solving.
Game players display high levels of motivation, which we need to understand
as educationalists. Motivation is a key characteristic of gaming, which keeps play-
ers playing for long periods of time and, as a psychological attribute, it is also an
essential component for successful learning. Given that motivation is a driving force
behind both participation and progression in gaming and learning, it is important to
understand the psychological theories of motivation, so that they can be applied to
pedagogical activities to sustain interest.
Ghergulescu and Muntean (2010: 72) observe that the literature on motivational
theory is extensive and, while it is a 'fuzzy' concept, it can be defined effectively as,
'the energy to achieve a goal, to initiate and to sustain participation', which involves
emotions, thoughts and beliefs. With respect to the learning context, motivation
refers to the energy to attain, to initiate, and to maintain participation in the learn-
ing process, to accomplish the goal of acquiring knowledge, skill and understanding.
Games motivate, because they contain three essential elements - autonomy, mastery
and purpose. Through having worthwhile goals, players have a sense of purpose,
which is meaningful to them. Through decision-making (of which actions and paths
to take in a game) players experience autonomy and, because games are adaptive, as
players increase their skill level, so a sense of mastery is attained, which keeps players
motivated.
Gaming as supporting self-efficacy and resilience
Further to this 'motivational' analysis of game playing is understanding how play-
ers develop self-efficacy and resilience, which are arguably important psychological
attributes in an increasingly complex and demanding world. In referencing Bandura's
(1994) self-efficacy theory of motivation, Ghergulescu and Muntean (2010) highlight
how a person must believe that they are capable of solving, executing and pursu-
ing a task. Essentially self-efficacy refers to self-perception of one's abilities, which
in turn influences effort, commitment and willingness to engage. Most important,
with respect to perceived difficulty level, it refers to the recovery of efficacy follow-
ing failure. 'The higher the self-efficacy is, the stronger the engrossment [and] the
higher the speed of recovery of their sense of efficacy after failure is' (Ghergulescu and
Muntean 2010: 72). Self-belief of efficacy enables learners to set challenging goals,