Category: Psychology

Earning points

In the app, points are earned by doing specific assignments. The child always knows what the assignment is and how many points it is worth. This mirrors our society where money is earned through labor.

According to consumer researcher Andrea Borch at the National Institute for Consumer Research (Norwegian: Statens institutt for forbruksforskning, SIFO) this approach is a good way to teach children the relationship between labor and money. Even if household-tasks later in life give no extrinsic rewards like a job would, in her experience the children will naturally understand the difference when they get older and also learn to value said household work as much as any other job (Noer, 2011, Stykkprisavtaler).

Willy-Tore Mørch, psychologist and professor of child and adolescent mental health at the University of Tromsø, agrees that children should be rewarded for completing assignments, but states that they should not get extrinsic rewards for good behavior. Parents should influence behavior through personal interactions and as role models. He also points out that both children and parents can learn a lot from negotiating and coming to an agreement on what sort of tasks should be done in the household (Nyquist, 2017). This is why we strongly encourage the family to set up task and rewards together, and make sure the parents also have their tasks set up in the app – not just the children.

Spending points

The child can spend the points they earn on rewards predetermined by the family. The specific reward and number of points it will cost mirror a real market, where people exchange money for goods and services. Unlike most economic systems, the points don’t circulate in the system like money would. They are created by parents and are removed from the system once a reward has been redeemed.

To connect the app to real life and make it easy for the child to transition to using money later in life, one could make the points resemble money, where for example 1 point = 1 NOK or 1USD. By doing this, children who are too young to freely spend money can still learn about its value. Spending 25 points to get an ice cream from the freezer at home will later feel familiar when spending 25kr to buy an ice cream in the store. This also makes it easy for parents to set up values for rewards. For example, if the child wants to save up for a new bike, a parent can set the item up as a reward where the price in points is equal to the real life price of the bike.

Once the child is old enough to start using money freely, our app supports rewards that automatically (through third party apps such as Vipps or Paypal) transfer money to the child’s bank account. This would take some of the control away from the parents, as the child can spend their money on anything, but according to Christine Warloe, consumer economist at Nordea, children need this freedom and the responsibility that comes with it, because they learn by doing and from their mistakes. If a child experiences having to stay home while all their friends are at the cinema because they spent their allowance, they might prioritize differently next time (Jørgensen, 2012, Gi dem ansvar).

Parents may still set up other rewards in the app if they so choose. This could be a good way to help the child with savings. For example giving them the choice of adding 100 points towards a bike in our app or spend those points to get 100kr added to their bank account. This way they can clearly see what their saving goal is and how close they are to it. This goal is also separated from their everyday bank account that they use for smaller sums such as lunch money or pokémon cards. This can be considered a stepping stone towards good saving habits as an adult.

It’s important to keep in mind that the rewards do not have to be related to spending real life money. Since the family decides what the rewards are they can include things such as TV or game time. However, we strongly discourage having family time as a reward. For example, going to the park as a family is a healthy habit and should not have to be earned.

This freedom means that families struggling economically can still teach their children about the relationship between labor and reward without having to spend money.

Conclusion

All in all the versatility of Family Manager makes it a good learning environment for children, where they can safely explore and help build an economic system with their family. The interactive experience and its resemblance to real life economy can help develop good saving and spending habits which can continue into adulthood.

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Sources:

Jørgensen, K. K. (2012, February 9). Triksene som gir deg økonomiske barn. Retrieved March 25, 2019, from https://www.nrk.no/livsstil/laer-barna-okonomi-fra-de-er-sma-1.7986586

Noer, L. K. (2011, December 14). Lommepenger etter innsats? Retrieved March 25, 2019, from https://www.nrk.no/livsstil/lommepenger-etter-innsats_-1.7915890

Nyquist, J. (2017, May 23). Hvor mye skal barna få i lommepenger? Retrieved March 25, 2019, from https://www.santanderconsumer.no/magasinet/bedre-okonomi/barna-fa-lommepenger/

Using the ARCS model, we can see that the users should feel successful and that the app should create small successes along the way by completing small milestones. Our app does this through the point system, we want the user to feel accomplished whenever they complete a task. Earning points through hard work will hopefully motivate the user to do more tasks, meaning they will over time become better and do a more efficient job.

Giving the control to the users is an important factor in our app. Lepper’s control states:

• Provide learners with a sense of control over the learning activity

This is one of the fundamentals our app is built on. The family has total control of the app, the tasks given to each individual person, the amount of points given for each task, and whether the task is accomplished or not.

Malone’s theory about challenge is also relevant here:

• Challenges is flavored by the perception of the learner : If a user see a piece of software as a tool, he or she won’t want the use of the tool to be difficult. […]

We really want our app to be a tool, with uses of gamification to make the tool attractive. We want the app to be minimalistic and user friendly so that elderly family members and younger children could use the app simply and efficient.

In conclusion, this means that the responsibility of using the app as it’s intended falls on the users, but with the option for help ( See Scaffolding). By developing our app as a tool, making it user friendly and adaptable to each family, this app could create a foundation for confidence and control that helps the user maintain structure in their everyday lives.

According to the well known ARSC model, it’s important for an app such as ours to have a clear end goal, something for the user to work towards. Since the app is based on the user setting personal goals, we need to clearly show the possibilities this app provides in order to inspire the user.

For a starter some clear and simple promotional material would be necessary. For ease of access the best approach would be to both have a simple promotional video, as well as a short guide with images. Both of these would show the ultimate goal of our app – to unite the family and make everyday life a little easier – so that the users know the apps potential before even downloading it.

When first setting up the app the user will get an option to “Create a routine for my family”. The user can chose to ignore this, or answer a few questions about their household and get some suggested chores based on their answers. An example of this could be telling the app that the family consists of three children and two parents, and they do not have a dishwasher. So the app will automatically set up 5 users, add the daily task of washing dishes, and set who does it each day. David and Emma on Monday, Paul and Tom on Tuesday, etc. If the user ignores this option they may still at any time browse a list of suggested tasks by category to add to their schedule, or they may skip these steps and create an empty profile from scratch.

Malone and Lepper’s theories on Intrinsically Motivating Instruction suggest that learning apps could benefit from including some sort of constant challenge and increase in difficulty as the user gets better to give a sense of progress and accomplishment. For our app this would be difficult to implement as the tasks are rather trivial and the challenge lies in maintaining routines rather than getting better at one specific skill. However we could simulate progress and accomplishment by showing statistics based on how much of each category task the user has done. For example “completed 100 cleaning-choirs”, or “did the dishes 20 times” to reach milestones that give extra rewards. This could also be accompanied by a streak-function that shows how long the user has gone without missing an important task-deadline. A streak might increase rewards earned per new completed task as well. Once a user has gone a long period maintaining their streak, the app may suggest adding additional tasks to their schedule in order to “increase difficulty”. From the beginning the app would suggest starting with few tasks and rather adding new ones when the current schedule is being maintained, to help the user grow with the app and avoid them being overwhelmed and quitting before they’ve even begun.

In conclusion we feel that our app would need to focus on showing its end goal and potential through promotional material, and that the user would need help during the start-up phase so that setting up and using the app doesn’t get overwhelming.

In order for users to keep engaging with our app, we need to make sure they find it useful and helpful. In order to do that, we have looked at the ARCS-model, a well known and tested model in instructional design. For this, the satisfaction part of the model is the most relevant. It lines out a few key thoughts to pay attention to:

• Give users the opportunity to apply what they learn.

In our app, the users apply the knowledge they learn all the time, as all the tasks are practical by default. For instance, if the task is to do the dishes, the user immedeately sees the result of their actions. Over time, the results will be felt in the sense that the house is cleaner overall.

• Try to tap into the intrinsic motivation of the learner.

We believe it is a fair assumption that most people want some level of structure in their life and their surroundings. Even children enjoy this. We therefore assume the user has a lot of intrinsic motivation already. All we are doing is setting up a framework for the user to achieve this goal they already want. Our app organizes what needs to be done, and gives reminders when necessary, it also provides extrinsic motivators (in the form of points) to give the user that extra push to get out of the couch and actually start working towards that goal.

• Provide positive encouragement and reinforcement to motivate the learner throughout the learning process.

Whenever a user checks off a chore, another user must accept that it is complete. This other user gets the option to send a personal message at the same time. We hope this will be used to encourage the user that completed the task. Of course, the app itself provides encouragement, but we believe that personal messages from a loved one will be more meaningful to the users than messages from the app. Simultaneously, this makes it easy to give constructive feedback on how well the task was completed. It makes it easy for a parent to remind the child if they for example forgot to wash a glass. Our system can be contrasted to a more standard rating system – that of giving up to five stars – based on how well the task was completed. Such a system gives a good overview on how well the user is doing, but fails completely to give information on how to improve, something we find extremely important. This also leads into the last point of satisfaction from the ARCS model:

• Maintain a sense of of equity with the learners by maintaining consistent standards and measures of success.

Ultimately this responsibility falls on the other users. The expectations parents have for their children usually rise as their age and skill in the specific tasks rises. Here a system like the one with the stars will fall apart, as what was once considered great will no longer be acceptable. We hope and trust that our users are reasonable when choosing wheter or not to approve the tasks of others.

To summarize: We believe our users have a lot of intrinsic motivation to keep structure in their lives, and we try to build on that. The users will always be applying the skills they learn through the app in the real world, and are immediately able to see the results, at least for some tasks. We trust that the users in a family or similar group will give each other positive messages to keep motivation up, but also be clear on when a task was completed poorly. In accordance to the ARCS model, this will keep our users engaged with our app.

ARCS Model – A well know theory in the field of  instructional design, and is used as framework for creating e-learning and courseware.

• Relevance (making the experience feel relevant)
  • Goal orientation – orienting the learner towards the goal by describing how, and by illustrating the importance of reaching the goal, and how  the goal will help the learner
    
  • Familiarity, showing how new knowledge is related to existing knowledge of the learners
    
• Confidence (make the learners confident)
  
  • Learners like to be successful and success builds on success. Create small opportunities of success along the way by completing small milestones.
    
• Satisfaction (learners need to feel that the learning has value and is worth the continued effort)
  • Provide learners the opportunity to successfully apply their knowledge and skills in a real or simulated setting so they can “see” what they have learned being applied.
  • Provide positive encouragement and reinforcement of the new learning as a strategy to motivate them throughout the learning process.
  • Try to tap into the intrinsic motivation of the learners.
  • Maintain a sense of of equity with the learners by maintaining consistent standards and measures of success.

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Malone’s Theory of Intrinsic Motivating Instructions – In the 1980s Malone did a study of various games to find out why they were fun and motivational. From this he presented a model that includes elements of Challenge, Fantasy and Curiosity

• Challenge (challenge depend on goals with uncertain outcomes)
  • Challenges is flavored by the perception of the learner : If a user see a piece of software as a tool, he or she won’t want  the use of the tool to be difficult. But if the learner sees the software as a toy, he or she expects and is motivated by challenge and wants to try to  figure out the software. For these learners the game is a challenge.
  • Goals should be personally meaningful to the learner and should be obvious or easily generated. Provide feedback towards progress. The learning environment should enhance the players’ self-esteem ( see also ARCS)

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Lepper’s  Instructional Design Principles for Intrinsic Motivation (researcher from Stanford University who proposed some principles in instructional design to invoke Intrinsic motivation instead of relaying on extrinsic rewards)

• Control
  • Provide learners with a sense of control over the learning activity
  • Let them have some say in into when to initiate and when to terminate an activity
  • Allow the learner to make decisions independent of outside influences.
  • Create an environment that minimizes extrinsic constraints on an activity and decrease any exiting extrinsic constraints over time.
• Challenge
  • Create an activity that is continually challenging to learners.
• Contextualization
  • Use an authentic context and environment to stress the utilitarianism of the learning