Dosed Failure Increases Older Adult's Motivation for an Exergame

We investigated whether dosed failuremotivates older adults to performmore repetitions in an exergame that involves hitting targets with stepping movements. The effect of dosed failurewas studied in a within-participants design inwhich all participants performed this exergame in both a Standard condition, inwhich one never fails, and in a Dosed Failure condition, in whichwe introduced about 30% failures. The order of conditions (Standard First or Dosed Failure first) was chosen randomly for each participant. Results showed that participants performed more repetitions in the Dosed Failure condition compared with the Standard condition, while play duration and subjectivemotivation at the moment of quitting did not differ. This shows that dosed failure motivated older adults to put a greater amount of effort to perform the exercise without affecting play duration or subjective motivation.