The Joy of Games, Extrinsically Speaking
by Patrick Matthews

A honest day's pay for an honest day's work. That's the idea, isn't it?

When it comes to education, things get more complicated. Rewards for students, particularly younger students, can actually work against your goals as an educator. Let me give you an example. A few years back, our youngest son's preschool teacher had a policy of rewarding kind acts with a trip to the prize box. The idea was to encourage the kids to be more compassionate towards one another. It worked great, until the day she didn't notice my son helping a friend clean up. Because she hadn't seen him, he didn't get a trip to the prize box.

The little guy was outraged. How dare she not give him his prize? After all, he'd helped his friend. He'd earned his reward. Instead, all he got was a lecture from me, explaining that people don't get paid for compassion. He didn't get it. Why clean up someone else's mess if you weren't going to get a prize?

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with extrinsic motivation, or giving kids external rewards for their actions. On the one hand, it motivates kids to act the way you want them to. On the other, it weakens their self-motivation. There’s a great discussion of this issue over at PsyBlog, complete with references and graphs.

From my (completely unscientific) point of view, I think there are a few different dangers with extrinsic motivation. One problem is a lack of connection between action and reward. In my preschooler's case, there was no logical connection between being nice and getting a toy. From his point of view, the goal wasn't being nice. It was doing whatever would get him a toy. If the teacher had said "everyone who stands on one leg gets a toy," he would have stood on one leg.

Another danger is that the reward can mask intrinsic value. My little guy wasn't recognizing how good it felt to help someone. The sense of satisfaction that comes from helping a friend was being completely masked by the thrill of getting a toy.

This masking points to another, more insidious, danger: changing focus. Once a person starts working for external stimulus, the attitude tends to change from what can I do? to what can I get?, and that's never a productive outlook.

I'm not saying rewards (or grades) have no place in education. They certainly do. Even in the younger grades, external rewards are a powerful motivator. My second-grader wants to do well on his homework, and he's upset when his grade isn't as high as he wants it to be. His motivation there is both intrinsic (he wants to do well for the sake of doing well) and extrinsic (he wants to see that "100%" written on the top of his page).

Where do games fit in?

Some games (like Boggle, Scrabble, AmuseAmaze, Zillio, 7 Ate 9, Sentence Says, and so on) directly reward players for their skills. The faster you can do math, for example, the better you're going to be at 7 Ate 9 (by Out of the Box). It's a straightforward extrinsic reward. The better you are, the more you'll win.

What's great about these kinds of extrinsic rewards, however, is that they motivate students without eliminating their intrinsic motivation. For example, let's say I decide I want to be great at Scrabble. Every day, I practice crosswords and work on building my vocabulary. Eventually, I start to win more Scrabble games. That's my extrinsic reward.

That's what happens during the game, but what about when I'm not playing? Well, I'm understanding more of what I read and hear. My speech is becoming richer with more complex words. I'm finally beginning to impress my kids with unexpected polysyllabic utterances... All those are intrinsic rewards that are in no way diminished by my obsessive drive to win. Why? Because I don't expect points outside the game.

That's the beauty of direct reward games: the extrinsic rewards are limited to being during the game, but the intrinsic rewards extend throughout your whole life.

Intrinsic rewards in games

Other games (like Cribbage, Calaboose, Feed the Kitty, Hisss, Farkle, etc.) don't give rewards specfically for doing academic tasks. Most games fit into this category. When you're playing Cribbage, for example, you're using math, you're not competing based on your math skills. Rather, you're simply using your math skills to play the game.

With these games, the player's internal reward for using skills is augmented by the rewards of the game. I'll stick with Cribbage for an example. When you're playing Cribbage, you get points for combinations of cards that add up to 15. You're not getting points for doing the math, but rather for the way you combine and play your cards. As you peg past your opponent, you're not thinking "wow, I'm really good at math." However, there's no denying that math had a part in your victory, and pride in your math skill becomes part of the total winning experience.

That's why you can always spot a Cribbage player when you're playing Crazy 8's. He's the one whispering "15-2, 15-4" to himself as he arranges his cards.

Social skills

Did you notice that I included Hisss in the list of games in the previous section? Hisss is a game where you match snake parts to form snakes and get points for longer snakes. It's a lot of fun to play with young kids. It's also a fantastic example of a game that builds social skills without anyone realizing.it.

My kids loved the game once they learned that they had to play nice, and wait their turn, and not mess up the cards, and not throw a tantrum when things don't go their way. That sounds like a lot to stack on a kid, but it really wasn't. They quickly understood that because the game was exciting and fun, it required more self-control. I never had to explain this lesson. They figured it out themselves. They knew they wanted to play, and they knew that the game was more fun when everyone played nicely.

That's why most games on the Game Finder justifiably list "social skills" as an educational component. With almost every game, better social skills translate into a better game experience. Put another way, players get both intrinsic rewards (the satisfied contentment of being appreciated by their peers) and extrinsic rewards (a fun night of playing games) for their social skills.

Putting it all together

The next time you're interested in trying to improve a student's skill or ability, take a moment to think in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic. Will a reward undermine your long-term goals, or is it appropriate? What are the intrinsic rewards gained from performing the desired skill? Can you augment those in some way? Would a game help to motivate, either directly or indirectly?

And while you think about all that, I'll keep scheming how to fit "Extrinsically" into my next game of Scrabble.