College Students' Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations for Online Game Playing

摘要

This purpose of this study was to explore college students' motivations for playing online games based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation orientations. A total of 20 college students with heavy online game playing experiences in Taiwan were selected to receive a semi-structured interview. A content analysis was used to analyze the interview transcripts. The results found that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations played different roles in college students' online game playing. The students tended to contact online games first time for extrinsic motivations but keep on playing online games for intrinsic motivations. In addition, students' preferences on types of online games seemed to be related with their motivation orientations. Therefore, this study suggests that online game designers and curriculum developers should notice the different roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and put them into the design for learning. Also, the individualizations of game-based learning should consider the relationships between students' preferences of game types and their motivation orientations. Further research should emphasized on examining the impacts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on students' online game-based learning as well as investigating the role of students' game preferences played in their learning via online game playing.