Abstract
Previous studies on multimedia learning have provided shreds of evidence for the positive effect of visually attractive emotional design on college students’ emotion and learning outcomes. However, the effect may vary among middle school students. The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of visual and behavioral emotional design on the emotional, motivational and cognitive outcomes of middle school students. In Experiment 1, 50 participants (ages 13–15) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: visual positive emotional design (colorful and anthropomorphic design) and visual neutral emotional design (achromatic and without anthropomorphic design). In Experiment 2, 173 participants (ages 13–16) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions created by the two factors: visual emotional design (positive vs. neutral) and behavioral emotional design (positive vs. neutral). The behavioral positive emotional design allows learners to interact with learning materials, whereas behavioral neutral emotional design only allows learners to watch learning video. Results showed that both visually attractive and behaviorally interactive design (visual positive emotion design and behavioral positive emotional design) had positive effect on learners’ positive emotions. Combining visual positive with behavioral positive emotional design could facilitate learning performance.
Highlights
In educational settings, emotion has been regarded as a crucial factor influencing learning (Pekrun et al, 2002), and many studies have shown that positive emotions experienced by learners can promote learning (Pekrun et al, 2002; Pekrun, 2006)
Positive Emotions Regarding the effects of visual positive emotional design on positive emotions, the results of RM-ANCOVA revealed that there were no main effects of visual emotional design, F (1,46) = 3.43, p = 0.07, and positive emotion measures, F (1,46) = 0.14, p = 0.72, but there was a significant interaction effect between visual emotional design and positive emotion measure, F (1,46) = 6.13, p = 0.02, η2p = 0.12
Results showed that compared with the visual neutral emotional design group, the visual positive emotional design group experienced significantly more positive emotions
Summary
Emotion has been regarded as a crucial factor influencing learning (Pekrun et al, 2002), and many studies have shown that positive emotions experienced by learners can promote learning (Pekrun et al, 2002; Pekrun, 2006). Research in the field of multimedia learning suggested that emotional design may be a promising way to improve learning via inducing learners’ positive emotions (Um et al, 2012; Mayer and Estrella, 2014; Plass et al, 2014). Those studies focused more on visual attractive elements (e.g., color and anthropomorphism) and recruited only college students as participants (Uzun and Yıldırım, 2018). Multi-Leveled Emotional Design in Learning gaps in the literature on emotional design, the present study aimed to investigate the impact of multi-leveled (visual and behavioral) emotional design on multimedia learning of middle school students.
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