Predicting students\u2019 flow experience through behavior data in gamified educational systems

Wilk Oliveira,Juho Hamari,Seiji Isotani,Olena Pastushenko,Kamilla Tenório

doi:10.1186/s40561-021-00175-6

Abstract

The flow experience (i.e., challenge-skill balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time, and autotelic experience) is an experience highly related to the learning experience. One of the current challenges is to identify whether students are managing to achieve this experience in educational systems. The methods currently used to identify students’ flow experience are based on self-reports or equipment (e.g., eye trackers or electroencephalograms). The main problem with these methods is the high cost of the equipment and the impossibility of applying them massively. To address this challenge, we used behavior data logs produced by students during the use of a gamified educational system to predict the students’ flow experience. Through a data-driven study (N = 23) using structural equation modeling, we identified possibilities to predict the students’ flow experience through the speed of students’ actions. With this initial study, we advance the literature, especially contributing to the field of student experience analysis, by bringing insights showing how to step towards automatic students’ flow experience identification in gamified educational systems.

Highlights

Flow experience, according to the Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), refers to an optimal experience felt by people while performing an activity as a result of total involvement in the task (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1988; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997a)
The flow experience is represented as the interconnection of the following nine dimensions (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997b; Jackson et al, 2011): (1) challenge-skill balance (CSB); (2) action-awareness merging (MMA); (3) clear goals (G); (4) unambiguous feedback (F); (5) total concentration on the task at hand (C); (6) sense of control (CTRL); (7) loss of self-consciousness (LSC); (8) transformation of time (T); and (9) autotelic experience (A)
Study design Our main goal in this study is to investigate what behavior data logs can be used to predict students’ flow experience in gamified educational systems

Summary

Introduction

Flow experience, according to the Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), refers to an optimal experience felt by people while performing an activity as a result of total involvement in the task (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1988; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997a). The flow experience measurement is challenging because among the instruments more adopted to measure flow experience in educational settings are questionnaires, observations, interviews, focus groups, eye trackers and electroencephalogram (EEG) (Perttula et al, 2017; Oliveira et al, 2018, 2021) These methods present limitations related to high cost, remove students from the activity and the impossibility of conducting a massive application (Oliveira et al, 2018, 2019; Oliveira, 2019). The flow experience is represented as the interconnection of the following nine dimensions (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997b; Jackson et al, 2011): (1) challenge-skill balance (CSB); (2) action-awareness merging (MMA); (3) clear goals (G); (4) unambiguous feedback (F); (5) total concentration on the task at hand (C); (6) sense of control (CTRL); (7) loss of self-consciousness (LSC); (8) transformation of time (T); and (9) autotelic experience (A). According to Csikszentmihalyi, to achieve the flow experience, it is required that a person reach these nine dimensions simultaneously (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988)

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Discussion

Conclusion