Intrinsic Motivation in Learning

Motivational learning derives from intrinsic motivation which means the person performs the activity without expecting an external reward. He performs the activity for the pleasure of the activity (Deci, 1971). Studies have found that intrinsic motivation stays when the external reward is a compliment but show that intrinsic motivation goes away when the external reward is money (Deci, 1971).

This theory is important for us because we are creating financial software for low-income students and our software should be personally satisfying to them to continue to play and learn. Also, without this motivation, students will learn how to read credit reports, know credit scores, read insurance policies and learn about student loans and documents in a cursory manner. Ideally, the financial software will have an adult to be involved along with it to guide the students and give feedback.

Based on this theory, we will create a financial literacy game that has personal feedback and is devoid of financial incentives. The game will, of course, be based on topics and technologies that are engaging and relevant to high school students.

We will create a game that has constructive feedback. We will encourage adults and peers watching their friends play to compliment their friends while they play. We will not reward students with increases in their real bank account money as a result of winning in the game which some realistic-virtual games do when trying to connect the virtual world to reality. And most importantly, we will use realistic scenarios such as buying a car, going for a movie so that the game is personally meaningful to the high school students.  Our platform based on our need finding will adopt the piece of technology high school students like the most, the kinds of things they do on their cell phones like texting and playing games (in the virtual game-based situation and in the making of the game) and the topics they are most interested in. These motivational learning concepts will be based on our need finding that takes place in the coming week. We’re going to interview the kids on these questions and integrate their responses to create our technology and our content.


Fogg's Behavior Model

According to Fogg's Behavior Model (2009), there are 3 elements that must converge at the same time for a certain behavior to occur -- motivation, ability, and trigger.

Based on this model, we will ensure that the 3 elements are present. First, we need to ensure that the students are motivated to become knowledgeable in this topic. (More information on motivation can be found in the previous theory discussed.) Secondly, tackling ability means that the students will have to have know how to do what they have to do. This can be done in two ways: one, to provide them with more training; or two, make the target task easier to do. We will explore ways on how to train users on relevant financial skills, and how to present these in ways that are not overwhelming. Finally, we will explore ways on how the correct behavior can be triggered in the students' everyday lives.


Scenario-Based Learning

Scenario-based learning makes use of situations which reflect real-life experiences that students may encounter. (Naidu, 2007) This theory is closely related to those of situated learning wherein learning takes place in the context of realistic settings. It is also related to theories such as goal-based learning and problem-based learning, wherein learners immerse themselves in a context to solve a problem.

With scenario-based learning, we are using technology to simulate real-life experiences. These simulations contain at the very least actors, a goal, artifacts, and a series of steps in order to reach the goal. By providing situations that are closely linked to the learner's real life experiences, they will be able to reflect on their role in the situation and decide accordingly, and will be able to better transfer this knowledge and/or behavior when they have these experiences in real life.


Critical Pedagogy: A pedagogical action should be a political action

"The pedagogy of the oppressed, is the pedagogy of people engaged in their fight for their own liberation. No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunated and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors" (Freire, 1921).

Critical Pedagogy refers to: habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions used to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse (Empowering Education, 129).

Critical pedagogy seeks to achieve human emancipation through the empowerment of individuals and groups. Empowerment can take many forms, and does not stop short at merely raising individual consciousness. For authentic change to occur at all levels of society, empowerment must incorporate change at institutional and social structural levels as well as change at the level of individuals and groups. Indeed, since each of these levels is interdependent, strategies for empowerment need to account for how these levels of human activity interact. Even though it is a multi-level process, empowerment only becomes authentic when it is realized in the practical daily activities of individuals (Kirk, 2006).

Critical Pedagogy and Paul Freire were inspirational to our project proposal because we are looking to work with low income youth population in California to empower them and that have been oppressed by society in terms of opportunities and access to financial services that they have access to. We do not only want to design a useful product for them, but also want them to be involved in our design and decision process so the learning and the final product could actually reach the audiences is intended for.


Instructional Design

ADDIE Model
The instructional content in our solution will be developed using the ADDIE model: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (Dick et al, 1996). This model is suitable for us because it is a very iterative approach to designing instruction, very similar to the design thinking approach as we will discuss later in our proposal. With the help of our supporters at the SF Mission Credit Union and the youth from their YTEP program, we will be able to get feedback about and revise our instructional content as necessary after we develop and implement it into our product. Each step of the ADDIE Model has an outcome that feeds into the next step in the sequence.  There are probably over 100+ different variations of the generic ADDIE model. The five phases of ADDIE are as follows: 


Analysis

• During analysis, the designer identifies the learning problem, the goals and objectives, the audience’s needs, existing knowledge, and any other relevant characteristics.  Analysis also considers the learning environment, any constraints, the delivery options, and the timeline for the project.

Design

• A systematic process of specifying learning objectives.  Detailed storyboards and prototypes are often made, and the look and feel, graphic design, user-interface and content is determined here.

Development

• The actual creation (production) of the content and learning materials based on the Design phase.

Implementation

• During implementation, the plan is put into action and a procedure for training the learner and teacher is developed.  Materials are delivered or distributed to the student group. After delivery, the effectiveness of the training materials is evaluated.

Evaluation

• This phase consists of (1) formative and (2) summative evaluation. Formative evaluation is present in each stage of the ADDIE process. Summative evaluation consists of tests designed for criterion-related referenced items and providing opportunities for feedback from the users.  Revisions are made as necessary.

Instructional Game Design

We plan to develop a solution that will follow principles of instructional design for online games and simulations. Games are designed to engage players. Game designers are at the forefront in developing interactive design. Elements of interactive design include the various dimensions of a setting, the roles and characters within a game environment, and "hooks" that afford actions and feedback to the players (Dickey, 2005). It is of utmost importance that we developing an engaging solution for these low-income youth so that they will be motivated to play the game to learn while learning about basic financial concepts. According to Jones et al. (1994) and Schlechty (1997), elements of engaged learning include:

• Focused goals
• Challenging tasks
• Clear and compelling standards
• Protection from adverse consequences for initial failures
• Affirmation of performance
• Affiliation with others
• Novelty and variety
• Choice
• Authenticity

Proponents of engaged learning argue that learners can become meaningfully engaged in the learning environment by being provided with activities that allow them to play an active role and make judgments about progress toward defined goals (Bell et al., 1996; Schlecty, 1990). In addition, use of a first-person character in the game is also very important, where the kids pretend to be a character in the game and see everything from the character's point of view. The shift from an outside orthogonal perspective to a first-person agent embedded in in the gamespace marks a shift in moving the player from outside of the game into becoming part of the gaming environment. The result of this shift creates more engaging experiences for the player (Riddle, 2002). These changes in design have growing relevance for the design of materials for both traditional classroom activities and digital interactive learning environments.


User-Centered Design

We propose to use user-centered design methodologies to the interface of our prototype. User-centered design is defined as "a philosophy based on the needs and interests of the user, with an emphasis on making products usable and understandable.... In other words, make sure that (1) the user can figure out what to do, and (2) the user can tell what is going on" (Norman 188).

One method of user-centered design is to create paper mock-ups of our product, otherwise known as "paper prototyping", where the interface is built solely from paper. The benefit of using this is that it is easy to get feedback and it is also very easy to make rapid changes as our product is being tested on users: "A paper prototype invites users to co-design the solution with the interviewer. The unfinished representation that clearly is not fully designed communicates better than words that users can add to and change the design to better support their tasks. By asking users to perform their real-life tasks in the paper system, users immerse themselves in the detail of the design in the context of a real-life case. When you observe and talk with them about their response to the system, you can tell whether or not the proposed design is working. If not, the interviewer suggests design changes by physically altering the prototype in the moment. In this way the team gets feedback on the design and fleshes out final requirements for the system" (Holtzblatt, 2005). Our group plans on creating a paper prototype of our online game simulation during the prototyping phase of the design process. We also plan on testing the paper prototype with users to gain insights of what high-level features of the game should be included or excluded.


Use of Technology

We propose to use the internet as a platform of our project for various reasons. Our technological solution would target the attention of kids as technology nowadays is of prime interest of children. In a pedagogical perspective, "technology offers opportunities for learner-control, increased motivation, connections to the real world, and data-driven assessments tied to content standards that, when implemented systemically, enhance student achievement as measured in a variety of ways, including, but not exclusively limited to, standardized achievement tests." Technology also "makes learning more interactive, enjoyable, and customizable, and this improves students' attitudes toward the subject and their interest in learning" (Valdez, 2000).

Scalability, accessibility and the capacity for copious information storage are additional factors that influenced our decision to use web technology as our solution. The fact that our solution will be an online platform means that it will be easily accessible to larger audiences, as opposed to if we created something that was physically tangible. Accessibility is important in our design because eventually we want to target our solution to other populations. In addition, the use of technology and an online database would allow us to store different user-scenarios, levels, instructional materials, and test materials with very low-cost. Using an online platform would enable us to provide more data and content for our solution.