Exploring Motivation: Using Emoticons to Map Student Motivation in a Business Game Exercise

Abstract

The literature relating motivation to simulation game performance often laments the lack of on-going measurements for motivation during the course of simulation play. To be practical, such a measure must be very simple and convenient. Ideally, it would also be culturally robust to facilitate its use in research across the many cultures in which simulation research is now very active. This paper investigates the use of an emoticon-based instrument, supporting the investigation with a study involving undergraduate students in a capstone course in Brazil.