Abstract
Studies have shown that motivation is an important factor positively related to learning outcomes. Thus, educators have tried to combine digital games with teaching materials to motivate students participating in learning activities for the past two decades. However, most studies so far view games as universally motivating rather than acknowledging that several factors may be at work within games to influence motivation. We feel it is important to understand the various factors in educational games that motivate students. Twenty 5th grade students in KaoHsiung, Taiwan participated in a study. Each participant completed a motivation and overall attitude questionnaire after playing educational MMORPGs. Results suggest that four factors motivated students to play the game provided, and allow extension to other educational MMORPGs: achievement (desire for competition with a standard of excellence), social (collaboration with others and building social networks), immersion, and the completeness of instructional mechanisms. Implications for both educators and educational game designers are provided.
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Hung, KH., Kinzer, C., Chen, CL.A. (2009). Motivational Factors in Educational MMORPGs: Some Implications for Education. In: Pan, Z., Cheok, A.D., Müller, W., Chang, M. (eds) Transactions on Edutainment III. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5940. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11245-4_9
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