Formulating Design Principles for Educational Games to Address Different Motivational Preferences

There is a lack of concise design knowledge for Educational Games (EG) that foster learning while considering different motivational preferences among learners. Against this background, there are currently two approaches in game design literature: On the one hand, game design research that provide player type-appropriate design recommendations on an individual level neglect formulating transferable design knowledge. On the other hand, articles summarize design knowledge but neglect player types. Consequently, there is a need for systematically derived design knowledge to guide educators in designing motivating EGs fostering learning. Responding to this need, this article presents seven exploratory identified Design Principles (DPs) for EGs fostering learning while considering motivation types according to the Hexad model. With the DPs we extended existing game design knowledge through incorporating learning as well as motivational aspects. An initial evaluation regarding their practical contribution shows, that educators perceive the DPs as valuable for the design of EG.