(Mittler, 2020)

Productive struggle is the key to deeper learning and is like building a muscle by exerting the muscle to exhaustion. As described in the MIND Research Instituted video that follows: 

(MIND Research Institute, 2016)

The video details the following principles of game-based learning that help make it an effective medium for students to engage in productive struggle (Mind Research Instittute, 2016):

1. Problem-Based Learning (vs. spoon fed answers)
2. Learning by Doing (learning by failing)
3. Informative Feedback (real-time feedback for course correction)
4. Progressive Growth (low floor to high ceiling)

O'Rourke, E., Peach, E., Dweck, C. S., & Popovic, Z. (2016) found that a game design that rewarded players incentive points for productive struggle is effective in promoting learning and retention.

Annotated Bibliography

O'Rourke, E., Peach, E., Dweck, C. S., & Popovic, Z. (2016, April). found that player retention can be increased by using a points incentive structure that rewards behaviors associated with growth mindset, or the belief that intelligence can grow. They looked at how growth mindset behaviors can be effectively promoted in an educational game. Results were dervied from an online study of 25,000 children who were exposed to five different versions of the incentive points intervention. Growth mindset animations cause a large number of players to quit, while brain points encourage persistence. The animations were designed to directly teach the growth mindset and reinforce the value of strategy use and productive struggle. They found that awarding brain points randomly is ineffective; the point incentive structure is successful specifically because it rewards desirable growth mindset behaviors. The results suggest that randomly praising students for their effort is not effective. The points incentive structure is deemed successful potentially because it rewards students for their productive struggle and use of strategy. 

Source: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2876034.2876040

References

MIND Research Institute. (2016, May 4). Using Game-based Learning in the Classroom to Develop Productive Struggle. Retrieved August 7, 2020, from https://youtu.be/0WlP8NNo4CU

Mittler, M. (2020, May 14). Online Learning and the Productive Struggle. Retrieved August 07, 2020, from https://blog.edgenuity.com/online-learning-and-the-productive-struggle/

O'Rourke, E., Peach, E., Dweck, C. S., & Popovic, Z. (2016, April). Brain points: A deeper look at a growth mindset incentive structure for an educational game. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale (pp. 41-50).