Immersion in e-Learning

Alexandra I. Cristea
2017 ACM Conference on Hypertext & Social Media  
Flow is a state of intense concentration and engagement, when a user is so immersed in her activity, that all other external influences cease. It is a well-known fact that flow is experienced in games, where we all had the 'just one more minute' request from our children. This paper analyses the notion of flow from two perspectives: the theoretical concepts and the practical reality. For the latter, game environments are compared to current elearning environments. Finally, the extracted
more » ... are mapped back to the theoretical underpinning. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centred computing → Interaction paradigms → Hypertext / hypermedia; Web-based interaction; Applied computing → Education → e-learning; Information systems → Decision support systems → Data analytics; Csikszentmihalyi recommends as flow antecedents clear goals & immediate feedback, and a good challenge & skills balance. IMMERSION FEATURES An appropriate source for extracting immersion and flow-related features are games. It is easy, at first glance, to attribute the typically high level of immersion in game environments to advanced computer graphics (such as Halo 5 1 ), or 3D interactivity (such as in EVE Online 2 ); however, this is only part of the answer. It also represents the part that is more difficult to implement, requiring large teams of dedicated programmers. In the following I identify some tangible features of current game environments that are much more straightforward to implement, but that are currently missing in current e-learning environments (even in more advanced adaptive or personalised ones [4, 5] ), which may trigger immersion [6] . The focus here is mainly on feedback, which is considered an essential aspect to be supported in elearning [7] . 1) Game environments, unlike TEL environments, often have multi-dimensional levels of interactivity and feedback. Thus, unlike in a learning system, where feedback often relates to scores, marks, or percentage of progress, which all reflect, in principle, the single dimension of knowledge-increase, in game environments various parameters can be tracked, and the user can progress in various ways, as defined by these parameters. 2) Next, in game environments, the feedback is frequent. At each 'kill' or 'success', for instance, the popular first-player-shooter games immediately display on-screen the experience feedback. Opposed to that, most learning environments, adaptive or not, give delayed feedback, often significantly so, only, e.g., when a whole chapter is read, or an important concept is mastered. 3) Moreover, the feedback is highly visible. Games often place their feedback in the middle of the screen, as in the previous example, with perhaps strong colours, or even graphics. In learning environments, especially in adaptive settings, a lot of discussions have centred on the benefits of high level of feedback. 4) Furthermore, in game environments, the feedback is finegrained. At each event, popular games immediately display experience feedback. A player feels at all times that she is making some progress. Opposed to that, most learning environments, adaptive or not, display quite a coarse-grained feedback. 5) Additionally, feedback is volatile. This means, feedback doesn't linger on the screen for very long.
dblp:conf/ht/Cristea17 fatcat:omwz6xzsrzasvhba32u4yky3kq