{"title":"Curiosity, Interest, and Engagement: Unpacking Their Roles in Students’ Learning within a Virtual Game Environment","authors":"Hsing-Ying Tu, Silvia Wen-Yu Lee","doi":"10.1177/07356331241277904","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Learning in a virtual environment has been found to foster students’ affective responses, indicating the importance of exploring the factors which affect students’ learning when engaged in a virtual game. This study aimed to explore the relationships among students’ epistemic curiosity, situational interest, and learning engagement in an exploratory 3D virtual game environment. A virtual game was designed for elementary school students to learn concepts of evaporation and condensation in real-life situations. Data were collected using questionnaires from a total of 121 sixth-grade elementary school students, and were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The reliability and validity of the instruments employed in this study were verified. The structural relationships showed that I-type epistemic curiosity showed a stronger influence on the design of the virtual game environment compared to D-type epistemic curiosity. Challenge was found to be negatively predicted by I-type epistemic curiosity, but positively predicted by D-type epistemic curiosity. Instant enjoyment was also found to play a significant mediating role between I-type epistemic curiosity and emotional engagement. It is suggested that future research should consider providing students with interesting contexts and challenging tasks as a critical approach to designing virtual game learning environments.","PeriodicalId":47865,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Educational Computing Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Educational Computing Research","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331241277904","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Learning in a virtual environment has been found to foster students’ affective responses, indicating the importance of exploring the factors which affect students’ learning when engaged in a virtual game. This study aimed to explore the relationships among students’ epistemic curiosity, situational interest, and learning engagement in an exploratory 3D virtual game environment. A virtual game was designed for elementary school students to learn concepts of evaporation and condensation in real-life situations. Data were collected using questionnaires from a total of 121 sixth-grade elementary school students, and were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The reliability and validity of the instruments employed in this study were verified. The structural relationships showed that I-type epistemic curiosity showed a stronger influence on the design of the virtual game environment compared to D-type epistemic curiosity. Challenge was found to be negatively predicted by I-type epistemic curiosity, but positively predicted by D-type epistemic curiosity. Instant enjoyment was also found to play a significant mediating role between I-type epistemic curiosity and emotional engagement. It is suggested that future research should consider providing students with interesting contexts and challenging tasks as a critical approach to designing virtual game learning environments.
研究发现,在虚拟环境中学习会促进学生的情感反应,这表明探索影响学生在虚拟游戏中学习的因素非常重要。本研究旨在探索学生在探索性三维虚拟游戏环境中的求知欲、情境兴趣和学习参与度之间的关系。本研究为小学生设计了一款虚拟游戏,让他们在真实情景中学习蒸发和冷凝的概念。通过问卷调查收集了 121 名六年级小学生的数据,并使用偏最小二乘法结构方程模型(PLS-SEM)对数据进行了分析。本研究采用的工具的信度和效度均得到验证。结构关系显示,与 D 型认识好奇心相比,I 型认识好奇心对虚拟游戏环境设计的影响更大。挑战性被 I 型认识好奇心负向预测,但被 D 型认识好奇心正向预测。研究还发现,即时享受在 I 型认识好奇心和情感投入之间起着重要的中介作用。建议未来的研究应考虑为学生提供有趣的情境和具有挑战性的任务,以此作为设计虚拟游戏学习环境的关键方法。
期刊介绍:
The goal of this Journal is to provide an international scholarly publication forum for peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research into the applications, effects, and implications of computer-based education. The Journal features articles useful for practitioners and theorists alike. The terms "education" and "computing" are viewed broadly. “Education” refers to the use of computer-based technologies at all levels of the formal education system, business and industry, home-schooling, lifelong learning, and unintentional learning environments. “Computing” refers to all forms of computer applications and innovations - both hardware and software. For example, this could range from mobile and ubiquitous computing to immersive 3D simulations and games to computing-enhanced virtual learning environments.