The potential and limitations of game technologies in the development of cognitive motivation of high school students in history lessons

Abstract

The cognitive motivation of high school students studying history develops under conditions that differ from those of basic school: the course acquires an analytical character, and external interest gives way to the demand for independent meaning-making. Game technologies, established in basic-school practice as a universal motivational resource, reveal a contradiction between their declared motivational effect and their actual productivity when transferred to the senior level. The aim of the study is to determine the conditions under which a game form strengthens cognitive rather than situational motivation among students of grades 10-11 in history lessons, and to outline the boundaries of its applicability. Conceptual-categorial analysis, structural-functional modelling, classification and content analysis of general-education regulatory documents were applied. A typology of game technologies based on the dominant mechanism of motivational influence is proposed, and a matrix of their correspondence to the personal and metasubject outcomes of the Federal State Educational Standard for secondary general education is constructed. It is established that the motivational effect of a game at the senior level is determined not by the game shell but by the nature of the activity it mediates: formats that shift intellectual effort onto historical material sustain stable cognitive interest, whereas entertaining and competitive formats mainly increase short-term engagement. The differentiated selection of game forms that takes this distinction into account reconciles the motivational and subject functions of the history lesson in the senior grades and turns the game from a universal device into an instrument whose efficacy is determined by the type of cognitive activity it requires.