eLearning courses are often perceived by their audiences to not be engaging enough to warrant the time and cognitive resources necessary to complete them. Flow Theoryâs assessment of optimal experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) provides insight into understanding user engagement by analyzing the interactions between user skill and task challenge. By designing courses that help users maintain a state of flow through a balance of user skill and task challenge, eLearning courses may better manage the struggle between frustration and boredom and lead to higher levels of engagement. This study investigates a novel technique for measuring task engagement by capturing user behavior data with little-to-no interference with the task. Results indicate that the measurement tool could potentially be used to extrapolate when cognitive overload occurs by helping to identify where in a task a person may reach a point of disengagement, and where they may choose to remain engaged. Implications and future research goals are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NCSU/oai:NCSU:etd-02182010-132225 |
| Date | 19 February 2010 |
| Creators | Sharek, David |
| Contributors | Anne McLaughlin, Christopher Mayhorn, Eric Wiebe |
| Publisher | NCSU |
| Source Sets | North Carolina State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-02182010-132225/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dis sertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to NC State University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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