Abstract
In this research the motivational levels of the students in a social welfare department while learning computer programming were analyzed relative to the contents that were taught in each lesson. The introductory programming course was game-based, and Java language was used with Eclipse as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The lessons were designed in such a way that as the students finished more and more assignments they were nearing completion of the Tetris game. The motivation levels were measured using a questionnaire based on the ARCS motivation model, which has four factors: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. As a result, it was found that the motivation of the students changes according to the lesson content.