Eckert Marcus, Scherenberg Viviane, Klinke Clemens
Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Apollon University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany.
Department of Public Health and Environmental Health, Apollon University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2023 Apr 5;14:1077406. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1077406. eCollection 2023.
Student engagement is essential to academic success and student-wellbeing. In the past, fostering engagement though extrinsic rewards has often been found to be of limited effectiveness over the long term. However, extrinsic rewards are important for improving engagement with non-intrinsically rewarding activities. Thus, in the present study a mechanism that is meant to prolong the effects of extrinsic rewards was investigated: the reward prediction error. This error occurs when rewards are awarded contrary to the awardee's expectations. In a quasi-experiment, 39 elementary school students participated in a classroom-based game, which was supposed to motivate them to solve math exercises. It combined reinforcement with elements of luck, which were supposed to elicit the reward prediction error. After 2 weeks, the intervention group had completed significantly more math exercises compared to a pretest and, importantly, also more correctly solved exercises than a control group. This suggests that game-based reinforcement that elicits the reward prediction error might help to increase student engagement over the medium term. It furthermore highlights the importance of applying gamification elements not only digitally but also in analog settings.
学生参与度对于学业成功和学生福祉至关重要。过去，人们常常发现通过外在奖励来促进参与度从长期来看效果有限。然而，外在奖励对于提高参与非内在奖励活动的积极性很重要。因此，在本研究中，我们调查了一种旨在延长外在奖励效果的机制：奖励预测误差。当奖励的授予与受奖者的期望相反时，就会出现这种误差。在一项准实验中，39名小学生参与了一个基于课堂的游戏，该游戏旨在激励他们解决数学练习题。它将强化与运气元素相结合，旨在引发奖励预测误差。两周后，与预测试相比，干预组完成的数学练习题显著更多，重要的是，与对照组相比，正确解答的练习题也更多。这表明引发奖励预测误差的基于游戏的强化可能有助于在中期提高学生参与度。它还强调了不仅在数字环境中，而且在模拟环境中应用游戏化元素的重要性。
