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Understanding Student Motivation to Engage in the Contents Under Pressure Digital Game

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Mobility for Smart Cities and Regional Development - Challenges for Higher Education (ICL 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 389))

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Abstract

Game-based learning is an effective tool for motivating engineering students to engage with difficult and often complex topics. Although some research has been conducted on how games elicit motivation, additional studies have been suggested. The proposed work leverages Keller’s ARCS-V theory to investigate how desire for a specific outcome within the process safety digital game Contents Under Pressure affects students’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their experience. It was observed that students play the game with a desire either to improve themselves for internal satisfaction or to reach a set external objective in terms of academic or career performance. Many students also played the game with the goal to achieve key outcomes as it relates to game-based metrics. Students expressed a mixture of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the outcome obtained. Those who were satisfied were most often exhibiting behaviors of paragaming or were experiencing immersion in the game, whereas those students that showed dissatisfaction often blamed the game while expressing difficulties with achieving a positive outcome.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education [IUSE DUE#1711376, 1711644, 1711672, and, 1711866] for which the authors are very grateful. The authors would also like to thank Filament Games for their development of Contents Under Pressure.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, 08028, USA

    Jeffrey Stransky & Cheryl A. Bodnar

  2. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Landon Bassett & Daniel Burkey

  3. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, 47803, USA

    Daniel Anastasio

  4. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Matthew Cooper

Authors
  1. Jeffrey Stransky
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  2. Landon Bassett
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  3. Cheryl A. Bodnar
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  4. Daniel Anastasio
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  5. Daniel Burkey
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  6. Matthew Cooper
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cheryl A. Bodnar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CTI Global, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Michael E. Auer

  2. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen, Germany

    Hanno Hortsch

  3. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen, Germany

    Oliver Michler

  4. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen, Germany

    Thomas Köhler

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix 1. Thematic code book used on pre-reflections to answer research question 1.
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Appendix 2. Thematic code book used on post-reflections to answer research question 2.
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Stransky, J., Bassett, L., Bodnar, C.A., Anastasio, D., Burkey, D., Cooper, M. (2022). Understanding Student Motivation to Engage in the Contents Under Pressure Digital Game. In: Auer, M.E., Hortsch, H., Michler, O., Köhler, T. (eds) Mobility for Smart Cities and Regional Development - Challenges for Higher Education. ICL 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 389. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93904-5_86

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