Ergonomics, 45:3, 203-217, 2002
Authors: Adrian Furham, Lisa Stbac
Main point:
An experiment with 33 male, 43 female, mean age about 17 y. Three conditions: silence, background music and background noise. Music and noise both diminish the study results. Introverts suffer a bit more. Music and noise were not significantly different from on another.
Read: Weinstein 1978 Individual differences in reaction to noise: a longitudinal study in a college dormitory
Educational Computing Research, Vol. 45 (2) 183-201, 2011
Authors: Lin Lin, Jennifer Lee, Tip Robertson
Main point:
Experiment (n=130, 90% female 23.9 y/o). Two multitasking environments: background video+reading and video+reading (testing both video and reading content afterwards). Background condition resulted better reading scores, test condition better video scores. Different video contents – comedy (positive) and news (negative) had different effects on reading.
Participants achieved better overall results in the background video condition. That is – when one tries to share attention between two sources of information then he actually can store less.
Read: Lin, Robertson, Lee (2009) Reading performances between novices and experts in different media multitasking environments
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25: 307-313 (2011)
Authors: Stacey Dobbs, Adrian Furnham, Alastair McClelland
Main point:
Experiments with female secondary school students (n=118) showed that with one exception, all tasks were performed better if the background was silent. Noise is worse than music. Introverts are more affected by the irrelevant sounds.
My thoughts:
A strong study in a compact form. Some concerns: Many studies like that are conducted in a laboratory setting: i.e. the noise and background music is the same for everybody and comes from a CD-player. This is an unrealistic situation. Also, since some may not like the music, the conditions are actually uneven.
Read: Furnham, Gunter, Peterson. Television distraction and the performance of introverts and extroverts.
Computers & Education 58 (2012) 490-500
Authors: Eric Fassbender, Deborah Richards, Ayse Bilgin, William Forde Thomson, Wolfgang Heiden
Main point:
A virtual history lesson with or without instrumental background music was presented to the participants. Two differnet display systems: Reality Center, 3-monitor system. n=48 (mean age 22.7). 3-monitor group remembered more facts than Reality Center group (both ‘music’ and ‘no music’ conditions). Reality Center group remembered more facts when background music was played.
In my opinion the groups were too small to use so many conditions. Let’s take one thing at the time or increase the samples.
Computers & Education 58 (2012) 172-180
Main point:
Experiment (n=81 with 3 conditions: text+pictures, text+real objects, text+pictures+real objects) showed no difference between text+pic and text+real objects (split attention was expected). But the last condition showed redundancy-effect.
Why couldn’t they detect the split-attention effect?
Although the physical distance between real objects and text in mobile device was much bigger than with text+pic both in mobile, the results did not differ significantly. Authors bring out a possible reason:
I thought two things here: 1) we don’t know if the split-attention effect was there or not. We can simply say that study result didn’t differ much.
2) Again I understand that the attitude towards learning may have important effects and would even outperform the problems arising from lousy study materials.
And to continue from here: can the study materials define the way of learning? (remember the active, constructive, interactive from Chi)
Interactive Learning Environments, 20:5, 423-439 (2012)
Main point:
Multimedia instructional materials have to be enriched with support devices in order to be effective. There are two approaches: inserting the support into material (canned support) or using human tutoring. An experiment was conducted (n=84 into 3 conditions: human aid, canned support, no support) and it showed that human tutoring was better.
From the literature overview: one can experience a human-human interaction with computer.
Further reading – Ginns, P. (2005). Meta-analysis of the modality effect. Learning and instruction, 15
Persuasive ’09, Apr 26-29, Claremont, CA. www.behaviormodel.org
Main point
Fogg Behavior Model (FBM) says that behavior is a product of three factors: motivation, ability and trigger. These have to be present in the same moment.
The combination of motivation and ability defines the likeliness a person is to behave in a desired way. It is possible that if one of the factors is too low then the other can compensate it but most common case is that they are not at extremes.
Trigger has to occur on time. Timing can often be the missing element.
Elements of motivation:
Elements of simplicity (ability=simplicity because people don’t want to learn to increase their ability)
Types of triggers
Triggers are more important than ever because in electronic world it is possible to act immidately.
FBM can also be used to prevent behavior but it is more difficult to do.
Computers & Education 59 (2012) 722-731
Main problem:
The design of educational software interface has a multidisciplinary nature. It takes at least two different experts to create a high quality interface: a designer and a teacher.
The Case:
Authors observe four experts designing an interface. The experts worked in pairs: An experienced designer together with a chemistry teacher and a design student with chemistry professor. Each pair was asked to design two interfaces about chemistry. They had 2 h sessions for both designs after which they briefed the outcome to the experimenter.
Results:
Designers used different approaches: (“integrate as fast as you can” and “structure then design”). Both designers were unfamiliar with the domain and thus the effect of interaction in pair could be causing the differences (partly). Educators played different roles in pairs: one pair shared all tasks, the other divided them. The lack of knowledge of learning theories on the experienced designer’s side was the major source of debates. The structure of all designs was the same: web-page-like. The graphs presenting the quantitative data shows how the experts used their time.
The 6th International Conference on Virtual Learning ICVL 2011
Main points:
Issues to be improved in “normal” e-learning process:
Dangers:
How to gamify an e-learning app?
Who is the subject? (type of personality and context of learning: how much information is expected to come through the e-course – 0-100% – and the rest comes from direct contact with humans). Some elements to use (some work better for one subject :
Conclusions
Gamification is not creating a game. It helps to motivate and engage students. Engagement can be measured (how many visited pages, time spent on site, frequency of visit). G offers proper tools to generate positive change in behavior according to Fogg (A behavior model for persuasive design: using computers to change what we think and do. Ibiquity 2002, Dec).
Academic Exchange Quarterly, 15 (2). A short article playing around with the idea of using gamification in schools: