Increasing Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulating Behaviors through Game-Play

Low-income youth consistently demonstrate low self-efficacy and poor self-regulating behaviors, which in turn leads to low academic achievement. The purpose of this TCC presentation is to share the creation process and results of an online game-based instructional design module intended to increase these affective behaviors among low-income third, fourth, and fifth grade students in a residentially based afterschool program. The game, entitled This Is Me: Mars Escape, was created from scratch in GameSalad, a game-development software package for non-programmers.
Mars Escape uses John Keller’s ARCS model of motivation to engage players in a fictional world in which the fate of the human race rests on their shoulders. Albert Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy has four main aspects, three of which Mars Escape directly targets: mastery, modeling, and persuasion. In conjunction, Mars Escape targets self-regulating behaviors by encouraging the player to keep track of their progress in relation to their ultimate goal. In the hopes of making the in-game self-regulation a transferrable skill, the game integrates a challenge to players to think about their real life goals and ways to keep track of those goals.

This TCC presentation will discuss the game-creation process, as well as the unique challenges of targeting affective behaviors among a marginalized population.

This presentation will examine participant results, and discuss the theoretical frameworks and instructional design models that informed design choices.