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January 03, 2009
No Fail Mode
If certain tasks in life had a no fail mode, would you be more likely to try them out? If there were no consequences to driving dangerously fast or climbing Mount Everest, would you be more likely to give either a try?
One of my kids’ favorite video games has a no fail mode in which you cannot lose the game. You might get a poor score if you do badly, but your game cannot be prematurely terminated.
When they don’t play in no fail mode, they always choose the easiest level of play. However, in no fail mode they usually experiment with harder levels.
Now, there are no serious consequences to doing badly at this video game. At least you don’t run the risk of being injured in a car accident or falling from a great height. However, to young children, perhaps the consequence of being told, “You lose!” is a daunting and intimidating.
I’m thinking this observation has two lessons. The first is that kids (or at least my kids) respond better to positive reinforcement as compared to negative reinforcement. The second is that where possible, video games should be designed with no fail modes. The latter may encourage kids to challenge themselves where they might otherwise not feel comfortable to do so.
Originally posted by Mike from Turtles all the way down, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jan 3, 2009 at 05:27 PM