Continuing motivation for game design

Abstract

In this paper we share experiences from a 2-week game-design project using the introductory programming environment AgentSheets with middle school students (6-8 grades) during a summer computing course at a public middle school in northern California. We examine factors that influence students. desire to continue working with the software, looking at similarities and differences between boys and girls, students with high or low levels of prior experience, and variables which we hypothesize might contribute to continuing motivation. Our findings suggest that programming in the context of game design can be of interest to a broad range of students, not only those who already are engaged in technological activities.