Antecedents of Attributions in an Educational Game for Social Learning: Who's to Blame?

Games are increasingly being used as educational tools, in part because they are presumed to enhance student motivation. We look at student motivation in games from the viewpoint of attribution theory, which predicts more learning by students who make attributions along certain dimensions, and thus may provide a way of examining this claim in more detail. We studied 13 students as they played a game designed to teach negotiation skills in a cultural context. Students’ overall attributional style was surveyed, as well as their achievement attributions following each meeting with a game character. Correlational results show that unexpectedly, students’ attributional style does not predict in-game attributions. However, characteristics such as gender, negotiation expertise, and frequency of game play are significantly correlated with particular in-game attributions. Because attributions have been show to be causally related to learning, with further study, such results might be used to positively influence educational game design.