Brain points

TLDR

Video games are increasingly used to boost student engagement, yet their effectiveness varies and the impact of in‑game rewards on learning behavior remains unclear. The study proposes that redesigning incentive structures to foster a growth mindset can improve educational games. The authors introduce “brain points,” a reward system that directly incentivizes effort, strategic use, and incremental progress to cultivate growth‑mindset behaviors. In a study of 15,000 children, brain points increased persistence among low‑performers, overall playtime, strategy use, and perseverance after challenge compared to a control, indicating strong potential for broader educational use.

Abstract

There is great interest in leveraging video games to improve student engagement and motivation. However, educational games are not uniformly effective, and little is known about how in-game rewards affect children's learning-related behavior. In this work, we argue that educational games can be improved by fundamentally changing their incentive structures to promote the growth mindset, or the belief that intelligence is malleable. We present "brain points," a system that encourages the development of growth mindset behaviors by directly incentivizing effort, use of strategy, and incremental progress. Through a study of 15,000 children, we show that the "brain points" system encourages more low-performing students to persist in the educational game Refraction when compared to a control, and increases overall time played, strategy use, and perseverance after challenge. We believe that this growth mindset incentive structure has great potential in many educational environments.