Johanna Andersson and Patrik Jonell

Developing a motivating interface for learning
– aspects of motivation and performance

Abstract

Is it possible to ease learning and make it more motivating? This thesis has its take-off point in this question and investigated it with language learning as representative example.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate which factors that are relevant when developing a motivating interface for learning and with this in mind develop a fully functioning prototype for vocabulary exercise. With the help of this prototype it was investigated whether students in elementary school became motivated and if they performed better after exercise with it compared to traditional exercise.

Factors that turned out to be relevant during the development of the interface mainly regarded motivation, memory and layout. It turned out that students became more motivated when practicing with a computer-based learning tool. When taking into account the students results, the prototype did not outperform the traditional way of repetition but did in fact work as a good complement to it. The students learned how to use the user interface as a part of the evaluation test of the prototype, which in turn led to the remaining part of the test being shortened, compared to the other test groups practicing in a traditional way. When giving the students 30 minutes of practice they performed equally regardless of learning method. In other words it was confirmed that the learning threshold for the user interface had been overcome somewhere during this session and that the students had started focusing on the vocabulary repetition actively.