This study explored the relationship between students' software choices and their social locations within school. It was the main hypothesis that children brought specific expectations to their interactions with educational software. Some of these expectations were cognitively-driven, but lots of these expectations were also socially-driven. The purpose of the study is to investigate students' specific social reasons and expectations for educational software, and how their social locations within the peer networks affected their software choices in the classroom. A software catalog survey and a social network survey were used.

The study revealed two major findings about children's mental models of educational software. Study I examined the specific goals and expectations students had with regard to educational software. The findings showed that students related themselves to four different goal choices when choosing software: cognitive goals, no goals, social goals, and affective goals. The students also appeared to have various expectations for the social interactions with peers when choosing software. Study 2 tested whether the students from different social locations would choose different kinds of software. According to the findings, the kinds of peer group where students are located (i.e., close friends, informative peers, and competing peers) appeared to significantly affect students' software choices. However, the findings did not show sufficient evidence to explain that students' social positions in the friendship network (i.e. central, peripheral, and isolated position) significantly differentiate their software choices.

To a large extent, students' specific goals and expectations will determine which software or which features of given software motivates students to learn and interact. Sometimes, these students' expectations and goals for choosing and using certain software may conflict with the software designers' goals and expectations for student learning. Software designers and instructors should be attentive to the relationship between the elements of software they choose to design and those elements which children may find motivating for various reasons.