The impact of enactive exploration on intrinsic motivation, strategy, and performance in electronic search

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of enactive explorat ion on intrinsic motivation, strategy, and performance on an electronic sea rch task. Enactive exploration includes elements of self-guided exploration and error management, which participants in the experimental condition rr ere encouraged to utilise during the practice segment of a training program me. Participants in the comparison condition received the same basic traini ng and completed the same practice segment without the enactive exploration intervention. Enactive exploration produced higher intrinsic motivation th an the comparison condition but did not influence other self-regulatory fac tors. Participants trained in the enactive exploration mode also had higher performance levels on transfer tasks performed under stringent performance expectations. Post-training self-efficacy and satisfaction had a positive influence on the quality of strategies used on the transfer tasks but intri nsic motivation was negatively related to strategy quality. The ways in whi ch enactive exploration instructions influence intrinsic motivation and the effects of intrinsic motivation on strategy and performance on complex tas ks are discussed.