The effects of information format on learners’ experience

ABSTRACT

Positive experience can increase the likelihood of revisiting Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) site. Our interest focuses on effects of presentation formats on learner’s experience in MOOC. In two empirical studies, participants viewed online course webpages that either contained an image of the instructor or not. We examined effects of presentation format adding social cues on learner’s attention, emotion and learning outcome using questionnaire and the physical evidence provided by an eye tracker. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the instructor’s image positively affects visual attention and learner’s emotion, especially perceived usefulness from emotion factor, and has changed learner’s browsing behaviour. Moreover, the results reveal learner’s cognition mechanism in MOOC learning. The results significantly contribute to efforts to design of MOOC webpages and also provide a valuable reference when selecting presentation format for online learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Social cues
• presentation format
• attention
• emotion
• eye-tracking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research on Higher Education Reform in Heilongjiang Province [SJGZ20170027] and Shanghai Higher Education Society [Y1-24].

Notes on contributors

Lihua Xia

Lihua Xia is associate professor at College of Information Technology, Shanghai Jian Qiao University, China. Her research interests include instructional design, educational psychology and data mining.

Dongmei Han

Dongmei Han is a professor and doctoral advisor at the School of Information Management and Engineering, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, China. Her research interests include instructional design and data mining.

Haijian Chen

Haijian Chen is a professor at the Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Open Distance Education, Shanghai Open University, China. His research interests include Educational technology and cloud computing.

Yonghui Dai

Yonghui Dai is currently a lecturer at the Management School, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, China. His interests include artificial intelligence and affective computing.