dc.description.abstract | The researcher attempted to determine whether the social cues used in learning materials result in online course socialness perceptions in higher education students. Furthermore, the pleasure, arousal, flow and motivation were added in the research model to investigate their influence on learners’ learning outcomes. According to the difference level of social cues, social cues were divided into two ways, PowerPoint and avatars. PowerPoint possesses low-social online course. Avatar, including human-like avatar and monster-like avatar, possesses high-social online course.
The subjects of this study were 176 students in the Asia University which had used the e-learning systems. The researcher adopted the static group comparison of experimental design. The students were assigned to one control group and two experimental groups. Students in the control group were taught via the PowerPoint version. Students in the experimental groups were taught via the human-like avatar version and monster-like avatar version. The Path Analysis was conducted to analyze the data and investigate the causalities among all parameters constructed in the proposed model. It was found that three versions, PowerPoint, human-like avatar and monster-like avatar, had similar results. The results of the study were summarized as follows:
I.The social cues, such as language, human voice, and social role, presented in the online course would cause users’ socialness perception, and in turn positively affect the users’ flow, arousal and, pleasure.
II.Users’ arousal had a positive effect on users’ flow and pleasure.
III.Users’ pleasure had a positive effect on users’ motivation.
IV.Users’ flow and motivation have positive effects on users’ learning outcome.
The multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to explore the difference of the three course versions. The results showed that the three course versions were significantly difference in several dimensions of the proposed research model, including socialness perception, arousal, flow, pleasure, motivation and learning outcome. The results of the study were summarized as follows:
I.In terms of socialness perception, PowerPoint version was significantly higher than human-like avatar version and monster-like avatar version; human-like avatar version was significantly higher than monster-like avatar version.
II.In terms of arousal, pleasure and motivation, PowerPoint and human-like avatar versions was significantly higher than monster-like avatar version.
III.In terms of flow, human-like avatar version was significantly higher than monster-like avatar version.
IV.Finally, in terms of learning outcome, PowerPoint version was significantly higher than monster-like avatar version.
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