Effects of attention monitoring and alarm mechanism on promoting e-learning performance

Abstract

With the rapid development of Internet-based technologies, the development of e-learning has become a trend in modern teaching and learning practices. Many studies have shown that learners` sustained attention strongly affects elearning performance, particularly during online synchronous instruction. However, an online synchronous instruction activity is limited by the fact that teachers cannot monitor immediately whether or not students are paying attention to learning activities because face-to-face supervision is lacking. This work develops an attention monitoring and alarm mechanism (AMAM) that is based on brainwave signals; the mechanism monitors the attention state of individual learners and helps online instructors or teaching assistants to improve the sustained attention levels of learners with low attention states as they perform online synchronous instruction activities, promoting learning performance. A total of 148 Grade 7 students in five classes at a junior high school in New Taipei City, Taiwan, were recruited as research subjects. Of the 148 students, 83 were randomly assigned to the experimental group that underwent online synchronous instruction in English with AMAM support while the remaining 65 students were assigned to the control group that underwent English online synchronous instruction without AMAM support. Analytical results reveal that the experimental group of learners exhibited significantly better learning performance and sustained attention than those in the control group, verifying that the AMAM efficiently promotes the learning performance and sustained attention of learners. A gender difference in learning performance during online English learning was identified both with and without AMAM support. Analytical results show that the proposed AMAM was more helpful in improving the learning performance of female learners than those of male learners. Additionally, the proposed AMAM improved the sustained attention of both male and female learners. Also, of the experimental group of learners, a group with high attention who were delivered fewer reminders to pay attention exhibited better learning performance and sustained attention than those with low attention who were delivered more attention reminders. Furthermore, the sustained attention and learning performance of the learners in the experimental group were strongly correlated, and the sustained attention strongly predicted learning performance.