Emotional Design of Educational Animations: Effects on Emotion, Learning, Motivation and Interest

Ali Haydar Bülbül,Abdullah Kuzu

doi:10.17275/per.21.69.8.3

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of different formats of emotionally designed educational animations in terms of the emotional worthiness of the material, retention and transfer, intrinsic motivation, subject interest and cognitive load. In this direction, an experimental research approach was adopted. Five emotionally diverged animations were developed for the study, one of which was designed without adding any appealing illustrations. Animations were about the life cycle of low mass stars and was developed by researchers under the supervision of an animation expert. With one control and four treatment groups, experiment was carried out with the participation of 256 students at a state university in Turkey. Data were gathered using Turkish adaptation of Subject Interest Scale, Intrinsic Motivation Scale, one-item Subjective Cognitive Load Scale, and a retention test, a transfer tests and an emotional experience survey which were developed by the researchers. Turkish adaptation process of Subject Interest Scale and Intrinsic Motivation Scale were also conducted by the researchers. Findings showed that two of the animations, both of which included character animations and one of which was enhanced by an introduction music and emotionally complementary sound effects, were emotionally effective. According to the results, emotionally effective animations had positive effects on transfer, intrinsic motivation and subject interest while no effect was found in terms of retention and cognitive load.

Highlights

We live in an era that almost all information travels through information and communication technologies
In accordance with the literature, this study aims to investigate the effects of different formats of emotional designs in terms of emotional worthiness of the emotional designs, learning, intrinsic motivation, subject interest and cognitive load
The design formats, which are considered to be unsuccessful on the emotional base, were the ones designed with the basic so-called emotional design elements, which were suggested in the multimedia learning literature, to be specific, the ones that adopt the use of appealing colors, rounded shapes and basic personification

Summary

Introduction

We live in an era that almost all information travels through information and communication technologies. Today’s society, the so-called post-truth society, tend to prefer and trust resources they feel emotionally close so much that they might even ignore the facts (Rider & Peters, 2018). This might be considered to be a distracting factor from an educational perspective; it can provide educators with a variety of instruments that enhance teaching and learning process, considering the role of emotions on cognition, motivation and learning. Various approaches to emotions predict that emotions are important factors or determinants of certain behaviors. As Kim and Hogges (2012) suggested, positive emotions, such as enjoyment and satisfaction, lead to higher levels of intrinsic motivation, while negative emotions, such as anxiety, boredom and sadness, cause lower level of intrinsic motivation and increase negative intrinsic motivation

Objectives

Methods

Results