Tenacious Assessments

Video game log data provides a unique opportunity to study how student gaming behavior relates to learning. Literature has investigated embedded assessments for learning in games, but less work measures students’ motivational behaviors in games. This paper explores a variety of persistence and challenge navigation measures based on student behaviors taken from log data of students playing a coding video game. Some of these measures are highly correlated with learning, and a classic measure of persistence. Results suggest new ways of measuring motivational behaviors in games. These new measures provide more fine-grained data than traditional assessments of motivation, and they can be used to assess positive learning behaviors during gameplay.