| dc.description.abstract | In this era of economic globalization, English has become increasingly important as the mainstream language for international communication, and English reading proficiency is an indispensable skill. Previous research has indicated that stimulating students′ reading interest and cultivating their reading abilities can greatly aid their vocabulary acquisition. Additionally, engaging students in shared reading with peers or adults can provide motivation for learning and have positive effects on their language development, literacy skills, and reading performance. However, due to a shortage of teaching personnel and an increase in dual-income households, it has become more challenging for students to engage in shared reading with adults. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 has presented difficulties for students in engaging in shared reading with peers. Therefore, this study has designed a learning environment that combines elements of gamification and the metaverse. This environment integrates original scripts of picture book stories, missions, and a chatbot that accompanies students in discussing the picture books. Students can explore, share discoveries, collaborate on missions, and recommend and discuss books within this environment. The study examines the impact of this environment on students from the perspectives of engagement and situational interest and compares it with traditional reading methods. Additionally, the study analyzes students′ patterns of participation in the environment to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.
This study conducted an experiment with 93 fifth-grade students from an elementary school in Taiwan. The experiment consisted of weekly English reading activities conducted over a span of eight weeks. Among the students, 46 were assigned to the experimental group, where they used the system proposed in this study during the weekly activity sessions held in the computer classroom. The remaining 47 students comprised the control group, who engaged in traditional English picture book reading activities within their regular classroom during the same weekly activity time. Throughout the experiment, the study collected data on students′ system interactions, flow questionnaires, and situational interest questionnaires, enabling analysis and comparison of their engagement levels and situational interest in English reading.
The results of the study revealed a significant increase in situational interest among the experimental group, while the control group showed a noticeable decrease in situational interest. Regarding engagement levels, the performance of the experimental group was superior to the control group and showed a significant difference. Additionally, the experimental group demonstrated a significant improvement in engagement levels from the beginning to the end of the experiment, whereas the control group exhibited a significant declining trend. By clustering the system interaction records of the experimental group, four characteristic types were identified: the high-interest-instruction-following group, the high-interest-self-exploration group, the low-interest-instruction-following group, and the low-achievement-low-engagement group. Furthermore, through correlation analysis, it was found that the number of book discussions by students was significantly negatively correlated with flow-control. In the pre-test, students′ situational interest in English reading was significantly correlated with the completion quantity of cloze tasks. However, in the post-test, no significant correlation was found between situational interest and the completion quantity of cloze tasks. | en_US |