Abstract
We examined the roles self-efficacy plays in environmental learning in terms of self-efficacy feedback and task-specific (navigation-based) self-efficacy. We manipulated self-efficacy using positive and neutral feedback to investigate the relationship between receiving positive feedback and environmental learning performance and subsequent recall. A total of 231 participants were administered visuospatial tasks, where 117 received positive feedback, and 114 received neutral feedback. Then, we tested environmental learning using route retracing, pointing, and map-completion tasks. Before each environmental task, participants evaluated their task-specific self-efficacy. A series of spatial self-reported preferences were gathered as well. Mediation models showed that receiving positive feedback after a visuospatial task influences environmental recall performance through the mediation of task-specific self-efficacy. Moreover, after accounting for experimental manipulation and gender, we found that task-specific self-efficacy, sense of direction, and visuospatial abilities influence spatial-recall task performance, even with some differences as a function of the specific recall tasks considered. Overall, our findings suggest that among individual characteristics, task-specific self-efficacy can sustain environmental learning. Furthermore, giving positive feedback can improve spatial self-efficacy before conducting spatial-recall tasks.
Highlights
Navigating and reaching destinations within an environment are important abilities in people’s daily lives
We investigated whether experimental manipulation of self-efficacy through feedback after visuospatial tasks affects performance in virtual environment navigation-based learning and subsequent recall
We investigated whether experimental manipulation through feedback could influence the performance of environmental tasks via self-efficacy
Summary
Navigating and reaching destinations within an environment are important abilities in people’s daily lives. Individuals learn various spatial information—for instance, routes, landmarks, directions, and turns [1]—that contribute to creating a mental representation of the environment [2]. Assessing spatial knowledge in virtual environment or virtual reality has the advantage of allowing the control of stimulus presentation, response options, sensory inputs, and scenarios. The validity of the virtual environment increases when it reproduces threedimensional entities in a fully immersive condition that resembles real-life experience; even the use of a desktop presentation (as it will be used in the current study) is a good approximation for the formation of environmental knowledge [4]. It has been found that the abilities used to learn a real and virtual environment are partially overlapping [5]
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