What is Self-Determination Theory?
What is Self-Determination?
What is Self-Determination Theory?
Making sure that your players have autonomy in your game is important. They need to know that they have the agency and the ability to do something. It’s also important that they feel competent. Players need to know that they have a reasonable chance of success when taking actions in the game. Likewise, players need to also feel that their actions are related to other effects in the game. This includes the environment, characters, and other players.
Autonomy, competency, and relatedness are three aspects of self-determination theory. Applications of this theory give players the ability to excel and engage with your game. They are also important for teaching, instruction, and applying games-based learning.
This article will provide an overview of self-determination theory and how the three needs of autonomy, competency, and relatedness influence player motivation. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation will be discussed in addition to how feedback loops affect the player experience. Self-determination theory in its application to both games and games-based learning will be shared. Self-determination theory’s applications outside of games and teaching will also be discussed.
What is self-determination theory?
Self-determination theory is a way for us to better understand human motivation. Self-determination theory addresses people’s inherent growth and tendencies towards specific psychological needs.
Those psychological needs (autonomy, competency, and relatedness) both influence and affect intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of individuals. In turn, that motivation informs how individuals develop and change cognitively and socially.
At its very basic level self-determination theory is about the innate psychological needs of humans. We can use our understanding of self-determination theory to create and design games; apply games-based learning; and better structure instructional materials for more effective learning and engagement.
Three needs of self-determination theory
Self-determination theory is ultimately a theory about what drives and motivates people. Specifically how they are motivated to grow and change through the aspects of three innate and universal psychological needs.
The first need is autonomy. Autonomy is about the ability to make decisions under one’s own guidance and volition. Being autonomous is about the feeling of control and agency over what we can do.
The second need is competence. Competence is about our need to experience our own behaviors as successful actions. Specifically how we interact and enact our will. If we choose to do something we want to be able to succeed at doing it.
The third and last core need is relatedness. Relatedness is about our need to interact, connect, and experience relationships with others. Relatedness in game play is about how our interactions relate and affect other characters and environments within the game. In learning, relatedness is about our relationship with other learners.
Autonomy, competence, and relatedness make up the three innate needs that creates and fosters autonomous motivation. In turn individual motivation is harnessed through teaching, education, and games-based learning.
Motivation and self-determination theory
Self-determination theory is applied to better understand the components that make up motivation of players and learners. Specifically, we look to self-determination theory to recognize the kinds of motivations that fuel internal decisions. These are decisions that are made by people who seek to achieve some sort of self-improvement. It also explains why autonomously motivated students thrive when instructors can support their autonomy, competency, and relatedness.
However, the basis of self-determination theory assumes that learners and players are oriented towards growth. That they seek to improve themselves, their status, and their position through actions they can take. Though this will not be the case for all individuals. There will be a time when learners are driven internally through intrinsic motivation and externally through extrinsic motivation.
When individuals are intrinsically motivated they engage in an activity because they find the action to be interesting and enjoyable. Conversely, extrinsic motivation is driven by their desire to achieve some sort of external reward (i.e. money, fame, or status) or to avoid some sort of punishment.
It’s easy to talk about the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. But it’s also important to distinguish the fact that what drives most people is not entirely based on one or the other. Human motivation is in fact a complex decision making process made at the individual level that is not driven exclusively by intrinsic or extrinsic forces alone.
It’s possible to be motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. However, designers and educators should be wary that overcompensation of one type of behavior can have negative effects. Specifically when it comes to some sort of extrinsic compensation (money) that is given for doing something that is already rewarding (playing games). Often this type of overcompensation results in reduced intrinsic motivation (making the activity feel like a chore).
Intrinsic motivation and self-determination theory
Intrinsic motivation is the hallmark of self-determination theory. It is also the main type of motivation that game designers aim for in games. Likewise, educators turn towards intrinsic motivation as a way of promoting students’ desire to learn. Simply put, intrinsic motivation is about doing something for its own sake.
This doesn’t mean that learners and players alike can’t be motivated by other means. Rather, intrinsic motivation is based on internal drivers. Those drivers also influence and affect other factors such as rewards, interpersonal controls, and social context for driving individuals to continue to play and engage.
Intrinsic motivation in gaming also has some real world applications such as helping players experience less severe anxiety. Intrinsic motivation also has the added benefit of encouraging players and learners to remain engaged in game play in order to “master” a game by continuing to progress despite difficulties.
Extrinsic motivation and self-determination theory
Opposite of intrinsic motivation is extrinsic motivation. This type of motivation is driven by external rewards, achieving an external goal, or avoiding some sort of external punishment. Best examples of this include working a job only for the money; participating in a contest only for the prize; or doing chores to avoid being reprimanded.
No matter the result, extrinsic motivation is mostly about how outside influences (forces outside of the individual player) affect their decision making. Because of games’ “magic circles” intrinsically motivating choices are usually constrained to activities within the game. However, actions influenced by extrinsic motivation increase when games and gamification have applications in real world circumstances.
These external motivators can be as serious as financial compensation or as benign as trophies. No matter the reward, the result is that individuals who are extrinsically motivated are governed by a need to achieve these external results.
Autonomy and self-determination theory
Autonomy and self-determination is about how individuals can interact successfully with the game, course, lesson or content. This is particularly important and relevant for education as it relates to learners self-determination.
Autonomous motivation derives itself from internal sources. This is why we continue to play games that we find highly engaging and additive. We feel that we have choice, agency, and control over the game. As such, we continue to play and interact in order to action those choices.
This is why toys often become one of children’s’ first play things. Toys represent components that we have control over. That level of control exercises our autonomy. Likewise, games include components which provide us with that same sense of agency and control over manipulating different aspects of the game. In turn, this fuels our willingness to continue playing.
This is why autonomy is critical for learning games, games-based learning, and serious games. Games support players autonomy in order to remain engaging. Autonomy in education providers learners with the ability to choose what and how they want to learn.
Competence and self-determination theory
Autonomy provides players and learners agency in games and learning. Competence in turn builds on that decision making structure by making players successful at those individual actions. This is why having a smooth and intuitive interface for games helps player exercise that agency. The reliance and high engagement of the interface makes the presentation of challenges more alluring for players. In turn, players’ interactions based on those challenges provide an active feedback loop for continued play.
This level of competence felt by players can be augmented by game designers. They can change or mold, shape, and structure game components and game mechanics in a way which makes game play feel more natural. By doing this, players engage and think less of the structure of the game and more about play, challenge, and their own competence from their interaction.
Table top games also provide a structure for players to support their own competence by acting within a specific rule set. Rules create a structure that defines what players may do and what they may not do within the game. Players who successfully accomplish goals within this rule set define and create their own competency.
Relatedness and self-determination theory
Finally, relatedness is the last type of need addressed in self-determination theory. Relatedness refers to the need to interact and connect to others through a state of engagement. This means the creation of meaningful relationships and interactions with other people (i.e. players or learners) as well as with avatars, NPC’s, and other characters within a game.
Likewise, game designers can include a sense of relatedness in games by creating opportunities for players to engage and connect with one another. Such opportunities provide players with connections and pathways that relate their own experiences to the same or similar experiences had by other players.
Autonomy and competence are incredibly important for the application of self-determination theory. However, relatedness shouldn’t be ignored by educators and designers. Instead, creators can implement relatedness by creating structures for engagement with others. For courses this could include creating informal “groups” amongst students such as study groups. For gamers this also includes online communities through socialized networks of MMORPG’s as well as those created through other platforms like Discord. These applications create a structure for connection and relatedness through relationship building and community.
Feedback loops
Self-determination theory is influenced by the type of engagement that players and students have with the content. This engagement often comes in the form of a feedback loop. These loops can be highly engaging and enthralling – especially for mobile games.
When players engage with the game’s core loop they receive feedback based on their actions. Those actions re-engage the loop and help the player interact and engage with the game. This engagement supports their own self-determination and emphasizes their own intrinsic motivation.
Remember: self-determination theory is based on the premise that individuals are incentivized towards self-improvement. Self-determination theory supports this premise by offering gamers the opportunity to “master” a game through gradual increases in competence.
Players’ pursuit of mastery of these games often leads them into a state of flow. Flow state is a state of cognitive absorption of players. They become so engaged in a task that other priorities are ignored while they pursue “mastery.”
Flow state is highly sought after in game design. It’s hard to create and develop reliably. However, as a concept for commercial entertainment games and games-based learning, it is incredibly helpful for maximizing player engagement and motivation.
Gaming and self-determination theory
Self-determination theory is highly connected to games and game play. That’s because players are intrinsically motivated to play games due to their ability to master and improve their own play through continuous engagement. This concept can be applied to most games. However, where applications of intrinsic motivation and self-determination find greatest appeal is in digital and computer games.
This is because players in digital games are often supported in their needs for autonomy and competence based on how they interact and engage within the game. We can see this most vividly in the aspect of the video game “avatar” or the character who we represent on screen. They can be as benign as Link from the Legend of Zelda or as a detailed model in Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider, or Crysis.
The reason why these avatars are so engaging for players is that we can experience the game through them as the medium, rather than ourselves. By doing this we use those avatars as individuals who allow us to play the game rather than just engage with individual game mechanics.
We treat our avatars as part of the user interface for the game. This makes it so that we no longer recognize the individual structures of the game; but instead see it as an experience that we want to master through our own improvement. Through that process we experience joy, fun, and fulfillment.
Games-based learning and self-determination theory
Self-determination theory also has roots in games-based learning despite learning games often possessing the bad reputation as providing shallow and often unimaginative experiences.
Self-determination theory is often driven by the mechanics of the game. Specifically how actions in the game can support players’ autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Serious game designers can create games that promote these three needs by structuring game mechanics to support not only the user experience but learning outcomes as well.
While not designed explicitly as a learning game; the board game Evolution actively interprets animals’ development and adoption of traits as ways for them to succeed and survive in a changing world. Those changes and adaptation mimic the biological evolutionary process.
Other learning games can capitalize on this by closely tying game mechanics, dynamics, and feedback loops with applications for learning outside of the game. However, it is also important to note that learning game designers should create game experiences that still support the three needs of self-determination theory in an effort to keep learners engaged and playing. The connection of game mechanics to learning outcomes should therefore accompany great design that supports intrinsic motivation.
Applications of self-determination theory
Self-determination theory has roles and applications outside of just games and games-based learning. Self-determination theory can play an important part in how people function in their everyday lives. This is because self-determination theory is influenced by individuals who are incentivized to pursue growth and development.
Self-determination theory can be more closely linked to fun and amusement if students can relate their individual actions with their own needs interests, goals, and abilities. Both educators and serious game designers can maximize student engagement in games-based learning by closely tying learning outcomes to game mechanics. It also helps if students can see (through their actions) how their autonomy and competence demonstrated in the game helps achieve a specific outcome. The more closely related that outcome is to actions they can take in the game, the better.
Designing games is already challenging; even more so when designing learning games. Designers can best support individual actions in the game through a core loop which prioritizes players needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In turn, educators can best support students’ outcomes by tying those actions of the game’s core loop with students learning outcomes.
An un-played game helps no one. Through the collaboration of both game designers and educators we can realize more fun and intuitive games that help students achieve their learning outcomes.
Takeaways
This article addressed self-determination theory and its three needs: autonomy, competency, and relatedness. The support of these three needs creates the motivations for players to engage and succeed through play. Motivation that originates internally based on an individual’s desire to improve is called intrinsic motivation. Motivation that originates externally based on a desire to achieve outcomes such as wealth, status, or fame is called extrinsic motivation. Autonomy in self-determination theory addresses individuals’ agency within a game. Likewise, competency is their ability to succeed at their actions whereas relatedness is how their actions connect within the game and to other players playing the game. A game’s feedback loop supports an individual’s motivation through self-determination theory. Self-determination theory is holistic and can be applied through games; games-based learning; and applications outside of learning and development.
This article was about self-determination theory. To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.
Dave Eng, EdD
Managing Partner
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2021, February 9). What is Self-Determination Theory? Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2021/2/9/what-is-self-determination-theory
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