Design (Part 3) - Where does Motivational Design fit in?

I would argue that the American educational system has failed to sustain, let alone increase, a child’s innate drive for exploration and learning. The same could be said for many corporate training initiatives. Although most Instructional Systems Design programs discuss motivational design, I believe motivational design is still one of the most misunderstood domains. Understandably so, another person's motives are not an easy thing to identify. Therefore the ISDer tends to focus on more "controllable" areas like objectives, tasks, common strategies, and content.

Many in the learning field are aware of (or should be aware of) the work of John Keller. He is most noted for his ARCS model of motivational design. In 1983, Keller noted that “our understanding of how to arouse and maintain student interest in learning lags far behind our knowledge of how to facilitate learning once the student has the desire to achieve." He warned that the field of instructional technology was too focused on effective and efficient design, and not necessarily focused enough on the motivation of the individual or the appeal of the instruction. Clark Aldrich also wrote that "Making content appealing to the end-learner may be the lesson that the e-learning industry needs to learn most of all."

John Keller noted discrepancies between optimal learning environments and what was actually practiced:

In the classroom we often say that we want to foster creativity; we want students to do original thinking. Then we punish them for giving us “wrong” answers. [Authors] have shown that people generally have to feel comfortable about the consequences of taking risks before they will exercise a great deal of curiosity.

Rezabek argued that motivation is one of the most important factors in education. To those who are emphasizing motivational design, I would say, "Keep on doing it", but for what I fear is the majority, there needs to be a greater emphasis on understanding the audience and their motives. This emphasis includes investigating the technologies they have grown up with (such as video games). In fact, some would be very surprised at the amount of research similarities between motivational design theories and game design theories. Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell (2002) claimed that "it is the 'holy grail' for training professionals...to harness the motivational properties of computer games to enhance learning and accomplish instructional objectives".

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*Aldrich, C. (2004). Simulations and the future of learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

*Garris, R., Ahlers, R., & Driskell, J. E. (2002). Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model. Simulation & Gaming, 33(4), 441-467.

*Keller, J. M. (1983). Motivational design of instruction. In C.M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-Design Theories and Models: An Overview of their Current Status. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

*Rezabek, R. H. (1994). The relationships among measures of intrinsic motivation, instructional design, and learning in computer-based instruction. Retrieved from ProQuest Direct, The University of Oklahoma. (UMI No. 9513759)