ARCS and Gender

Forgive me for blogging my thoughts for this week all at once, but I was just a LITTLE busy this weekend...

Which brings me to my first thought. When we experience computer difficulties (such as your computer crashing right as you are downoading comps), most of us due to our prior successful experience with the medium will (after a few moments of initial shock, panic, etc.) continue to work at the problem until it's solved. We don't think "Oh, I'll never work on the computer again" (well,at least not after the crisis is over). Why? Because we have experienced past success whihc has increased our confidence in our ability to use the computer. This in turn increases our motivation to use the computer in the future (remember Keller). I hypothesize that one area we should be looking at (but to my knowledge, none of us are) is how past learner success with a particular medium of games increases motivation. Have boys, because they typically get more time on the computer, experienced more success with using a computer and thus their motivation for using it as a gaming medium is greater than girls?

Just a thought....