@inproceedings{ea39a36fb9174503ab183116970c5052,
title = "What makes learning fun? exploring the influence of choice and difficulty on mind wandering and engagement during learning",
abstract = "Maintaining learner engagement is critical for all types of learning technologies. This study investigated how choice over a learning topic and the difficulty of the materials influenced mind wandering, engagement, and learning during a computerized learning task. 59 participants were randomly assigned to a text difficulty and choice condition (i.e., self-selected or experimenter-selected topic) and measures of mind wandering and engagement were collected during learning. Participants who studied the difficult version of the texts reported significantly higher rates of mind wandering (d =.41) and lower arousal both during (d =.52) and after the learning session (d =.48). Mind wandering and arousal were not affected by choice. However, participants who were assigned to study the topic they selected reported significantly more positive valence during (d =.57) but not after learning. These participants also scored substantially higher on a subsequent knowledge test (d = 1.27). These results suggest that choice and text difficulty differentially impact mind wandering, engagement, and learning and provide important considerations for the design of ITSs and serious games with a reading component.",
keywords = "Affect, Engagement, Mind wandering, Reading, Serious games",
author = "Caitlin Mills and Sidney D'Mello and Blair Lehman and Nigel Bosch and Amber Strain and Art Graesser",
year = "2013",
doi = "10.1007/978-3-642-39112-5_8",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9783642391118",
series = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)",
publisher = "Springer Verlag",
pages = "71--80",
booktitle = "Artificial Intelligence in Education - 16th International Conference, AIED 2013, Proceedings",
note = "16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2013 ; Conference date: 09-07-2013 Through 13-07-2013",
}