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{
    "pk": 28929,
    "title": "How should we incentivize learning? An optimal feedback mechanism foreducational games and online courses",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "There are plenty of opportunities for life-long learning but peo-ple rarely seize them. Game elements are an increasingly pop-ular tool to keep students engaged in learning. But gamifica-tion only works when it is done properly. Here, we introducethe first principled approach to gamifying learning environ-ments. Our feedback mechanism rewards students’ efforts andstudy choices according to how beneficial they are in the longrun. The rewards are conveyed by game elements that we call“optimal brain points”. In our experiment, these optimal brainpoints significantly increased the proportion of participantswho attempted to learn a difficult skill, persisted through fail-ure, and succeeded to master it. Our method provides a princi-pled approach to designing incentive structures and feedbackmechanisms for both educational games and online courses.We are optimistic that this can help people overcome the moti-vational obstacles to self-directed life-long learning.",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "gamification; artificial intelligence in education;persistence; educational games; incentive structuresIntroductionAs the technological development accelerates"
        },
        {
            "word": "self-directedlife-long learning is becoming critically important. MassiveOpen Online Courses (MOOCs) and other digital resourcesprovide unprecedented opportunities for life-long learning.However"
        },
        {
            "word": "only about 15% of the students who enroll in aMOOC actually finish it (Jordan"
        },
        {
            "word": "2019). One of the rea-sons might be that learning something new often requiresconfronting one’s own incompetence and persisting throughseveral failed attempts to understand a new concept or dosomethin"
        },
        {
            "word": "2001; Baker et al."
        },
        {
            "word": "2008)even though they are often necessary to master new skills(Ericsson"
        },
        {
            "word": "Krampe"
        },
        {
            "word": "& Tesch-R ̈omer"
        },
        {
            "word": "1993). People who havebecome experts in using an outdated tool by doing the samework in the same way for many years may be especially resis-tant to learning how to use a new tool because in the short-"
        },
        {
            "word": "Corbett"
        },
        {
            "word": "& Koedinger"
        },
        {
            "word": "2004; Mostow et al."
        },
        {
            "word": "2002).To help student’s overcome such motivational obstacles"
        },
        {
            "word": "educational software increasingly relies on game elements"
        },
        {
            "word": "such as points"
        },
        {
            "word": "levels"
        },
        {
            "word": "and badges"
        },
        {
            "word": "to encourage continued en-gagement with the learning materials (Kapp"
        },
        {
            "word": "2012; Dicheva"
        },
        {
            "word": "Dichev"
        },
        {
            "word": "Agre"
        },
        {
            "word": "& Angelova"
        },
        {
            "word": "2015; Huang & Soman"
        },
        {
            "word": "2013).The trend of gamification has outpaced the development ofan adequate theoretical foundation"
        },
        {
            "word": "and it has been noted thatgamification is often ineffective and sometimes even harm-ful (Toda"
        },
        {
            "word": "Valle"
        },
        {
            "word": "& Isotani"
        },
        {
            "word": "2018). This raises the questionhow the incentive structures of digital learning environmentssuch as educational games and online courses should be de-signed to optimally incentivize good study choices"
        },
        {
            "word": "by mak-"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Papers with Poster Presentations",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/85d7s4kz",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Lin",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Xu",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "MPI for Intelligent Systems",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Maria",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Wirzberger",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "MPI for Intelligent Systems",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Falk",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Lieder",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "MPI for Intelligent Systems",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2019-01-01T18:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/28929/galley/18800/download/"
        }
    ]
}