Abstract:

Information literacy is a vital requirement for lifelong learning underscoring the teaching role played by librarians (Katz, 2013). Low adoption of skills addressed in these classes is manifested in inabilities of many college students to locate, utilize, and effectively utilize information for studying and other life activities (Felker, 2014). Despite its critical need, keeping students engaged in these classes remains a challenge. As such library instructors have become open to more creative forms of instructional design. Within recent years’ academic libraries have adopted games in their classes as a form of active learning. Given the innate interest of 21st century learners in games, many educators assume that students will naturally accept game related tasks in the classroom. Studies have shown that this is not always the case, and stress attention be paid to not only effective scaffolding but student needs and acceptance of game activities in the classroom (Hastie, 2010).

While most studies focus on the learner as the player of a digital game, there is a strand of research about the effects of learners creating games that incorporate the concepts addressed in the classroom. This approach is potentially appealing as the creative investment is on the student and less resources is needed to implement. Game design presumably helps students to reformulate their understanding and express their personal perspectives about topics in the game artifact (Kafai, 2005). However, before immersion into nontraditional learning environments, the instructor needs to consider the degree to which a student believes that designing games can offer him or her learning opportunities. The onus is on the instructor to motivate students by empowering them and offering choices on learning the material that is taught. Self-determination theory states that individuals have certain psychological needs that must be met in order to be intrinsically motivated. Those needs are autonomy, perceived competence, and relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This study looks at students’ motivation over the game design process in the classroom.

Data was collected during class sessions through observation, field notes, video recordings and a 22 item version of the intrinsic motivation inventory (IMI). Twenty-two undergraduate students enrolled in the information literacy class did game design activities. The study was conducted over a semester with 15-hour class contact time. Interviews were done at the end of the classes. The IMI was distributed at the planning and end stages of the game design process.

Giving students the responsibility for setting their own actions by providing choices, help in satisfying their need for autonomy and acceptance. Students entered the class with a high level of perceived competence. Through game design they had opportunities to identify gaps in their knowledge by becoming more involved with the information literacy content. Using a combination of pedagogical approaches fostered improved relatedness among peers. Maintaining self-determination was critical and implementing motivating strategies was not a simple one-step process but addresses over the class duration. Meeting student’s psychological needs was instrumental in maintaining students’ motivation and successful implementation of a non-traditional instructional approach.

Keywords:

Intrinsic motivation, Game design.