Guidelines for We Design

Motivation and Technology Theory

Keller (1983) defines motivation as the magnitude and direction of behavior, the choices people make as to what experiences or goals they will approach or avoid, and the degree of effort they will exert in that respect. In formal educational settings students enter the classroom with various levels of motivation. The teacher's goal is to harness the motivation already present and to increase levels of motivation where needed. A learning website, in turn, must also harness and increase motivation. A well designed learning website, like a good teacher, can increase student motivation. A poorly designed website, like a bad teacher, can decrease motivation.

ARCS is a research-based systematic design model that can be used along with other design models to improve the level of motivation in instruction (Keller, 1987). With ARCS, motivation is embedded in the model. The model's four major components are Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction.

Attention: Gaining and keeping the learner's attention is the single most important component of ARCS. Strategies include sensory stimuli (providing novelty, surprise or uncertainty), inquiry arousal (stimulating curiosity through thought provoking questions) and variability (incorporating a range of methods and media).

Relevance: A belief that the target or goal can be met, i.e. ‘what's in it for me'? Benefits should be clearly stated. Strategies include Goal Orientation (state objectives and purposes), Motive Matching (match goals to learner needs) and Familiarity (content is clear and linked to learners' experience and values).

Confidence: Confidence is required to so that learner's will want to put in the necessary effort. If they think that the objective is out of reach their motivation will decrease. Strategies include Learning Requirements (inform learners about performance requirements), Success Opportunities (allow for positive opportunities for successful learning), Personal Control (link learner success to their effort and performance).

Satisfaction: It is integral that learners earn some form or reward or satisfaction from the learning experience. That can be experienced in a value of entertainment or a sense of having achieved something. Strategies include Natural Consequences (encourage intrinsic enjoyment), Positive Consequences (provided positive reinforcement and feedback), Equity (maintain consistent standards and consequences).

ARCS Model: http://www.arcsmodel.com/home.htm

Lee & Boling (1996) propose a framework aimed at enhancing motivation that designers can use to arrive at effective screen design. The framework outlines two types of guidelines. The first supports intrinsic motivation while enhancing extrinsic motivation. The second guideline seeks to prevent or minimize the loss of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. They focus on five screen design elements: typography, graphical images, color, animation and audio. Appendix C is a table outlining their framework. A learning website, in order to be effective, would have to be easy and fun to navigate for students. A website that has issues in design elements, on the other hand, would serve to de-motivate students.

Lee & Boling: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019...

Computer-Based Learning theory

Engagement Theory: The Engagement theory is a framework for technology-based learning. The Engagement theory's primary principle is that learning activities must be meaningful and engage students through interaction and tasks. Proponents of the Engagement theory believe that engagement can be facilitated by the use of technology in ways that are difficult to achieve otherwise (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). In order to take advantage of the principles of the Engagement theory, learning websites should aim to engage students through interaction and tasks and contain enough information to render it meaningful to students.

Links: http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Engagement_theory

Theory of Connectivism: The theory of connectivism asserts that knowledge is distributive, that is, it is formed by a network of connections built from experience and interactions with a knowledgeable community (Downes, 2006). This is in stark contrast to the traditional belief that knowledge is stored in a given place such as the course book and/or teacher. Learning websites are an example of knowledge being stored, a knowledge that is accessible to both student and teachers.

By observing today's North American youth and young adults we can quickly conclude that, by and large, they are often ‘connected'. This connection is provided by today's technology in the form of cell phones, Blackberries, and Palm Pilots (as examples), all of which are linked to others via the Internet. It becomes important that learning websites seek to take advantage of the principles of connectivism by offering options that allow students to be connected, discussion groups are an example of such options.

Links: http://www.connectivism.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism