Validating Games for use in Research

Hi fellow game designers,
Can someone help me out with this situation.
I'm keen to have a game validated for use in research.
A final-year student of mine intends to use a game which she and her fellow interns had designed to teach psychology to 1st year students. She would like to use that game to test her hypothesis that games (such as this) can be used to increase motivation to learn. This is something that has been rather controversial as either side has its supporters, hence resulting in the nay-sayers shying away from using games in the classroom for the simple argument that very little research (or none that they are aware of) has been done to proof in quantifiable terms (read: statistically significant) this idea.

The plan is to use John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design, specifies 4 steps in promoting and sustaining motivation in the learning process: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction (ARCS).

I would really appreciate if someone could help me out with some suggestions on validating the game which they have produced before they actually use it to test their hypothesis.

Currently, our ideas for validation are:

1. conduct a pilot - select about 100 participants - play the game - then administer a questionnaire among the participants using the either a self-designed questionnaire or the ARCS t to gauge motivation levels

2. then conduct the cronbach-alpha statistical procedure using SPSS on the results

I welcome any comments or suggestions