Difficulty and self-efficacy: An exploratory study
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Abstract Serious games are becoming increasingly popular due to their association with increased learning outcomes when compared to traditional self‐regulated learning activities. However, the majority of research examining the outcomes of serious games has focused almost exclusively on learning outcomes. This has resulted in a lack of research examining why these types of games result in increased positive outcomes, such as engagement or performance. This study seeks to address this gap in existing research by examining the relationship between game difficulty and participants’ engagement, performance and self‐efficacy in a Pacman style maze navigation game. This required the use of hidden difficulty variations which participants were randomly assigned. Participants engaged with the game over a 5‐days practice period. Results from this study suggest that difficulty plays a considerable role in influencing participants’ self‐efficacy for the task. Self‐efficacy has been consistently linked to positive outcomes such as increased engagement and performance. This highlights the importance of difficulty as a game design factor as well as providing an insight into the manner in which serious games could be further refined in order to increase user’s self‐efficacy and associated positive outcomes. Implications for future serious games and self‐efficacy research are discussed.
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The mindful decentering intervention being perceived as easier may have impacted participants' feelings of self-efficacy regarding management of their anxiety or the extent to which they were able to engage in the intervention.
“The mindful decentering intervention being perceived as easier may have impacted the participants' feelings of self-efficacy regarding the management of their anxiety or the extent to which participants were able to engage in the intervention (Bandura, 1988; Nuutila et al., 2021; Power et al., 2020).”
From Mindfulness Effects on Anxiety: Disentangling the Role of Decentering and Treatment Expectations (2024) · cites this paper as Power et al., 2020
The Discussion reports that lower game difficulty was associated with greater mastery experience and self-efficacy, and that difficulty groups differed in practice attempts (passages 1 and 8). This supports a possible link between perceived ease, self-efficacy, and engagement, but the study did not examine mindful decentering or self-efficacy in managing anxiety. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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“This is because students’ self-efficacy has been consistently linked to positive outcomes such as increased engagement and performance (Power et al., 2020) and students with higher self-efficacy would perform better in the high-level learning of critical conceptions in mathematics (Cai et al.”
BackgroundMindfulness Effects on Anxiety: Disentangling the Role of Decentering and Treatment Expectations
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- Authors
- Power, J., Lynch, R., & McGarr, O.
- Affiliations
- University of Limerick (IE)
- Corresponding author
- Power, Jason
- Venue
- British Journal of Educational Technology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-02-25
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 281-296
- ISSN
- 0007-1013 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8535
- OpenAlex
- W2916190574
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 6.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- British Journal of Educational Technology (publishedVersion)
- Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (acceptedVersion)
- University of Limerick Institutional Repository (University of Limerick) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- University of Limerick Institutional Repository (University of Limerick) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- University of Limerick Institutional Repository (University of Limerick)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Keywords
- serious games, game difficulty, self-efficacy, player engagement, game performance, game design, student self-regulation
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