Emotional design for digital games for learning: The effect of expression, color, shape, and dimensionality on the affective quality of game characters
Publication date: Available online 20 February 2019Source: Learning and InstructionAuthor(s): Jan L. Plass, Bruce D. Homer, Andrew MacNamara, Teresa Ober, Maya C. Rose, Shashank Pawar, Chris M. Hovey, Alvaro OlsenAbstractWhat is the affective quality of specific design features of game characters? The Integrative Model of Emotion in Game-based Learning (EmoGBL) describes common mechanisms of how emotion and learning processes interact to foster specific learning outcomes. In the present paper, we asked how color, shape, expression, and dimensionality of game characters induce emotions in digital games for learning. We inve...
Source: Learning and Instruction - February 20, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Achievement or agreement – Which comes first? Clarifying the temporal ordering of achievement and within-class consensus on classroom goal structures
This study therefore investigated the temporal ordering of achievement and consensus. Consensus was assessed within the framework of classroom goal structures, and thus, for the three dimensions of task, autonomy, and recognition/evaluation. A total of 490 secondary school students (49.6% female, 31 classes) participated in the study. Results from multilevel cross-lagged panel models revealed no effect in either direction for task, but showed that higher class-average achievement at the first measurement wave positively predicted consensus on autonomy and recognition/evaluation at the second wave. The findings for autonomy...
Source: Learning and Instruction - February 17, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
To add or to multiply? An investigation of the role of preference in children's solutions of word problems
Publication date: June 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 61Author(s): Tine Degrande, Lieven Verschaffel, Wim Van DoorenAbstractPrevious research has shown that upper primary school children frequently erroneously solve additive word problems multiplicatively, while younger children frequently erroneously solve multiplicative word problems additively. It has been suggested that children's preference for additive or multiplicative relations explains these errors, besides their lacking skills, but this claim has not been tested empirically yet. Therefore, we administered four test instruments (a word problem test, ...
Source: Learning and Instruction - February 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Student-perceived teaching quality: How is it related to different achievement emotions in mathematics classrooms?
This study examines the relation between student-perceived teaching quality in mathematics classrooms in grade 9 and enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom in grade 10, at both the student and classroom levels. The original data set included 6020 students who participated in the German national extension of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Multilevel regression analyses showed that teacher support and classroom management were negatively related to student-level anxiety and boredom. Teacher support was positively related to enjoyment and negatively related to anxiety at the classroom level. Cognitive act...
Source: Learning and Instruction - February 5, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Expectancy of success, attainment value, engagement, and Achievement: A moderated mediation analysis
Publication date: April 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 60Author(s): David W. Putwain, Laura J. Nicholson, Reinhard Pekrun, Sandra Becker, Wendy SymesAbstractThe aim of this study was to examine how expectancy of success, attainment value, and their interaction predicted behavioural engagement, and how behavioural engagement, in turn, predicted achievement. Data were collected from 586 English students aged 10–11 years in their final year of primary school. Expectancy of success was positively related to subsequent achievement directly and indirectly, mediated by behavioural engagement, over and above the va...
Source: Learning and Instruction - January 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The relationship between inquiry-based teaching and students’ achievement. New evidence from a longitudinal PISA study in England
Publication date: June 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 61Author(s): John Jerrim, Mary Oliver, Sam SimsAbstractInquiry-based science teaching involves supporting pupils to acquire scientific knowledge indirectly by conducting their own scientific experiments, rather than receiving scientific knowledge directly from teachers. This approach to instruction is widely used among science educators in many countries. However, researchers and policymakers have recently called the effectiveness of inquiry approaches into doubt. Using nationally-representative, linked survey and administrative data, we find little eviden...
Source: Learning and Instruction - January 12, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Role of subjective and objective measures of cognitive processing during learning in explaining the spatial contiguity effect
Publication date: June 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 61Author(s): Guido Makransky, Thomas S. Terkildsen, Richard E. MayerAbstractThe main objective of this study was to investigate the potential of combining subjective and objective measures of learning process to uncover the mechanisms underlying the spatial contiguity effect in multimedia learning. The subjective measures of learning process were self-reported cognitive load ratings and the objective measures were eye-tracking and EEG measures. Learning outcome was measured by scores on retention and transfer posttests. A sample of 78 university students p...
Source: Learning and Instruction - January 10, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Text difficulty, topic interest, and mind wandering during reading
Publication date: June 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 61Author(s): Alexander Soemer, Ulrich SchiefeleAbstractThe present article deals with the question of how the difficulty of a text affects a reader's tendency to engage in task-unrelated thinking (mind wandering) during reading, and the potential role of topic interest as a mediator of the relation between text difficulty and mind wandering. Two-hundred and sixteen participants read three texts with each text either being easy, moderate, or difficult in terms of readability and cohesion. From time to time during reading, participants were interrupted and r...
Source: Learning and Instruction - January 8, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Where to go and how to get there: Goal clarification, process feedback and students’ need satisfaction and frustration from lesson to lesson
This study investigated to what degree lesson-to-lesson variability in teachers' goal clarification and process feedback explains variability in secondary students’ motivational correlates. Students (N = 570, 24 classes) completed questionnaires at six occasions. Multilevel regression analyses showed that relations between perceived process feedback and experienced need satisfaction (i.e., competence, autonomy and relatedness) were conditional on perceived goal clarification. No such interaction effects between process feedback and goal clarification were found for need frustration (i.e., experiencing failure, feelin...
Source: Learning and Instruction - January 5, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Science for all: Boosting the science motivation of elementary school students with utility value intervention
Publication date: April 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 60Author(s): Da-Jung Diane Shin, Minhye Lee, Jung Eun Ha, Jin Hyun Park, Hyun Seon Ahn, Elena Son, Yoonkyung Chung, Mimi BongAbstractThe need for students to learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has increased steadily, while student motivation in this area continues to fall behind. We investigated the effects of science utility value intervention in increasing the science motivation (i.e., interest in science, appreciation of the role of science in future careers, and intention to engage in science-related activities) of Korean 5...
Source: Learning and Instruction - December 19, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
At their children's expense: How parents' gender stereotypes affect their children's reading outcomes
Publication date: April 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 60Author(s): Francesca Muntoni, Jan RetelsdorfAbstractFollowing expectancy-value theory, we investigated the role parents' reading-related gender stereotypes favoring girls play in explaining students' reading-related competence beliefs, intrinsic task values, and achievement. Drawing on a sample of 1508 students (49% girls, age at T1: 10.89 years) from 60 schools in Germany, we collected data at the beginning of Grade 5 and in the second half of Grade 6 using parent and student questionnaires. Structural equation modeling yielded two main results: First,...
Source: Learning and Instruction - December 14, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Scaffolding peer-assessment skills: Risk of interference with learning domain-specific skills?
This study investigated whether scaffolding has a similar, positive effect on the learning of peer-assessment tasks. We hypothesised that: (1) domain-specific scaffolding improves domain-specific accuracy and reduces time on task and perceived mental effort, and (2) peer-assessment scaffolding improves peer-assessment accuracy and reduces time on task and perceived mental effort. Additionally, we explored whether there was an interaction between domain-specific and peer-assessment scaffolding. In a 2x2 experiment with the factors domain-specific scaffolding (present, absent) and peer-assessment scaffolding (present, absent...
Source: Learning and Instruction - December 14, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Struggling writers in elementary school: Capturing drivers of performance
Publication date: April 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 60Author(s): Julie E. Dockrell, Vincent Connelly, Barbara ArfèAbstractConceptualising the difficulties experienced by struggling writers in middle elementary school is of both theoretical and practical importance. To further our understanding of the problems experienced by struggling writers we aimed to identify the writing measure which best discriminated struggling writers from their peers, and the proximal and distal factors which contributed to performance. The performance of 96 students (Mean age 10; 4), 39 of whom were independently identified as s...
Source: Learning and Instruction - December 8, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Dyadic executive function effects in children's collaborative hypermedia learning
Publication date: April 2019Source: Learning and Instruction, Volume 60Author(s): Cindy Paans, Eliane Segers, Inge Molenaar, Ludo VerhoevenAbstractThe current study investigated the extent to which executive functions (EF) affect how prior knowledge predicts hypermedia learning outcomes in primary school children. Learning outcomes were: individual knowledge and transfer, and dyadic assignment quality. Eighty-seven same-sex dyads participated in a hypermedia WebQuest assignment about the heart and living a healthy lifestyle. EF measures were action control and attention control. Dyadic analyses were performed using actor-p...
Source: Learning and Instruction - December 6, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Effectiveness of an extracurricular program for struggling readers: A comparative study with parent tutors and volunteer tutors
This study reviews the effectiveness of an extracurricular paired reading program to enhance the reading of struggling readers. For the first time, two program conditions are compared within one study: parent tutors and volunteer tutors. The program was implemented within a randomized controlled field trial; its effects on reading fluency and reading ability were investigated on a sample of 198 Swiss third graders with reading difficulties. The findings revealed that volunteers outperformed parents: Children who trained with volunteers developed significantly better reading fluency after 20 weeks (d = .21). However, the ma...
Source: Learning and Instruction - December 3, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
