Early use of Internet-based educational resources: effects on students' engagement modes and flow experience

This case study explores how educational training and clinical practice that uses personal computers (PCs) and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to access Internet-based medical information, affects the engagement modes of students, flow experience components, and IT-competence. A questionnaire assessing these variables was administered before and after a training course. A follow-up interview investigated the contextual factors related to the use of PDAs. There were significant increases in IT-competence and in the positive and negative modes of engagement except for the Ambition/Curiosity mode. The overall flow experience did not change significantly over time. The PDA users showed an increase in negative modes across time larger than PC users due to technical, emotional, and motivational factors. This study concludes that a student's interaction with PCs and, in particular, PDAs produces positive and negative engagement modes and flow experiences that can be better understood by using the Engagement Modes model (EM-model).

[1]  A. Bandura.  Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy.

[2]  B. Nardi.  Context and consciousness: activity theory and human-computer interaction , 1995 .

[3]  A. Kruglanski.  The endogenous-exogenous partition in attribution theory. , 1975 .

[4]  J. Russell.  A circumplex model of affect. , 1980 .

[5]  Fred D. Davis.  Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology , 1989, MIS Q..

[6]  Lucy A. Suchman,et al.  Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication (Learning in Doing: Social, , 1987 .

[7]  J. Teasdale.  Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change? , 1978 .

[8]  Leif R. Hedman,et al.  Engaging in Activities Involving Information Technology: Dimensions, Modes, and Flow , 2004, Hum. Factors.

[9]  Thomas K. Landauer,et al.  Relations between cognitive psychology and computer system design , 1990 .

[10]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Beyond boredom and anxiety , 1975 .

[11]  John M. Carroll,et al.  Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium , 2001 .

[12]  Victor Kaptelinin,et al.  Computer-mediated activity: functional organs in social and developmental contexts , 1995 .

[13]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: The Experience of Play in Work and Games. , 1977 .

[14]  Gary M Olson,et al.  Human-computer interaction: psychological aspects of the human use of computing. , 2003, Annual review of psychology.

[15]  Gavriel Salvendy,et al.  A personal perspective on behaviour and information technology: A 20-year progress and future trend , 2001, Behav. Inf. Technol..

[16]  Mary Beth Rosson,et al.  Scenario-based design , 2002 .

[17]  S. Deshpande,et al.  Task Characteristics and the Experience of Optimal Flow in Human—Computer Interaction , 1994 .

[18]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.

[19]  J. Webster,et al.  The Dimensionality and Correlates of Flow in Human-Computer Interactions. , 1993 .

[20]  Colin G. Ellard,et al.  Context and consciousness , 1995, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[21]  Brett E. Shelton,et al.  Technology adoption as process: A case of integrating an information-intensive website into a patient education helpline , 2002, Behav. Inf. Technol..

[22]  John Millar Carroll.  Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction , 2003 .

[23]  E. Salas,et al.  The science of training: a decade of progress. , 2001, Annual review of psychology.

[24]  Philip H. Mirvis.  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , 1991 .

[25]  Mary King Flowers,et al.  Effects of Reward on Intrinsic Motivation , 1975 .

[26]  Donald A. Norman,et al.  The invisible computer , 1998 .

[27]  David Wasserman.  The Activity Checklist : A Tool for Representing the “ Space ” of Context , 1999 .

[28]  M. I. Nurminen,et al.  Different perspectives: What are they and how can they be used? , 1987 .

[29]  Diane M. Strong,et al.  EXTENDING THE TASK-TECHNOLOGY FIT MODEL WITH SELF-EFFICACY CONSTRUCTS , 2002 .

[30]  Edward L. Deci,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[31]  C. Osgood.  On the whys and wherefores of E, P, and A. , 1969, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  Tim Berners-Lee,et al.  The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do for Us , 2001 .

[33]  M. Cole.  A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition , 1993 .

[34]  M. Heidegger,et al.  Being and time : a translation of Sein und Zeit , 1996 .

[35]  Victor Kaptelinin,et al.  Methods & tools: The activity checklist: a tool for representing the “space” of context , 1999, INTR.

[36]  A. Bandura.  Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. , 1977, Psychological review.