I Choose…This One!

Giving students choices regarding their work is a core principle of gameful course design. Increasing autonomy should support intrinsic motivation, and enable students to increase their competence by creating a safe context in which to try new and challenging tasks. We analyzed the implementation of assignment choice in three large undergraduate gameful courses. Each course featured a different style and degree of support for student autonomy, and these variations related to differences observed in student attitudes. Students’ answers on open-response survey questions shed light on the underlying reasons for these differences.We discuss the implications of our findings and identify next steps to guide the design of gameful courses.