Flow Experience and Situational Interest in Game-Based Learning: Cousins or Identical Twins

Abstract

While game-based learning seems to be an effective instructional approach, the underlying learning and engagement mechanisms of games are still poorly understood. In the current study, we investigated to what extent flow experience and situational interest are different indicators of engagement in game-based learning. Fifty-two Finnish 5th graders played a game on fractions at home during COVID-19 enforced distance learning. Flow and situational interest measures were embedded directly into the game environment. Results revealed that although flow experience and situational interest constructs share similar components, they also differ. In particular, regression analysis indicated that situational interest is mostly related to immersive aspects of flow. Moreover, learning gains achieved by playing the game and situational interest were positively related – a relation not found with flow. Although flow was not related to learning gains, it seems to be a more competence-oriented construct than situational interest as it was positively correlated with in-game performance. The design of the game successfully supported weaker students with adaptive scaffolds and in-game self-reporting measures worked well. Taken together, even though situational interest and flow share similar components, both constructs are important for multifaceted assessment of engagement in game-based learning. Theoretical and practical implications for engagement research and game design are discussed.

Motivation and Emotions in a Health Literacy Game: Insights from Co-occurrence Network Analysis

“…Second, we examined relations between flow experience, situational interest, and epistemic emotions. We expected to find a strong positive correlation between flow and situational interest, as demonstrated in [9]. The downside of correlational analyses is that it only looks for coupling between variables regardless of their magnitude.…”

“…Situational interest emerges from interaction with the features built into the environment, for example, game elements and game mechanics in learning games. According to Kiili et al [9] flow experience and situational interest can be used as proxies of engagement in game-based learning as these constructs explain why people engage in activities. Their study revealed that although flow experience and situational interest are strongly related, situational interest is mainly related to immersive aspects of flow and does not reflect the fluency dimension of flow.…”

“…According to Fredricks, Filsecker, and Lawson [8], learner engagement consists of three distinct but interrelated dimensions: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement dimensions. In the present study, we used two motivational constructs, flow experience, and situational interest, as proxies of engagement as suggested in [9]. Moreover, to better address students' emotional engagement in the Antidote COVID-19 health literacy game, we also measured students' epistemic emotions.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue on GaLA Conf 2020

“…1 Le Mans Université, EA 4023, LIUM, 72085 Le Mans, France, {iza.marfisi, ludovic.hamon, pierre.laforcade}@univ-lemans.fr 2 Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands, roland.klemke@ou.nl 3 Università degli Studi di Genova, franz@elios.unige.it…”

“…"Flow Experience and Situational Interest in Game-Based Learning: Cousins or Identical Twins", by Kiili et al [3], investigated to what extent flow experience and situational interest are different indicators of engagement in game-based learning. Experimental results with Finnish 5th graders revealed that, although flow was not related to learning gains, it seems to be a more competence-oriented construct than situational interest as it was positively correlated with in-game performance.…”