The Impact of Autonomy and Types of Informational Text Presentations in Game-Based Environments on Learning: Converging Multi-Channel Processes Data and Learning Outcomes

Capturing Sequences of Learners' Self-Regulatory Interactions With Instructional Material During Game-Based Learning Using Auto-Recurrence Quantification Analysis

“…This second research question builds off of the first research question and aims to understand the full picture of how SRL processes can be examined and related to each other when examining eye gaze dwell times across relevant and irrelevant instructional materials. First, we hypothesize that learners with restricted agency will have greater learning gains than those with full agency, as supported by previous literature (Bradbury et al, 2017 ; Sawyer et al, 2017 ; Dever and Azevedo, 2019a ; Dever et al, 2020 ). Further, we hypothesize that learners with restricted agency, greater prior knowledge, and greater learning gains will demonstrate increased dwell times on relevant instructional materials as they can better evaluate content relevance.…”

“…A total of 139 undergraduate students were recruited from a large public university based in the United States to learn with a narrative-centered, game-based learning environment called Crystal Island (Rowe et al, 2011 ; Dever et al, 2020 , 2021 ; Taub et al, 2020 ). Crystal Island was designed to foster (1) higher-order thinking skills, such as effective problem solving and scientific reasoning, while also gaining knowledge about (2) microbiology content.…”

“…For this question, a book or research article on the function of vaccines would be relevant to the pre-test whereas an instructional material on genetic diseases is irrelevant for this question. The classification of an instructional material is based on priming literature (McNamara, 2005 ) where participants are assumed to classify (either accurately or inaccurately) instructional material as either relevant or irrelevant in reference to the pre-test (Dever et al, 2020 , 2021 ).…”

“…Learners' task and cognitive conditions can influence their operations which refer to the cognitive strategies a learner can employ when interacting with instructional materials. The operations that are enacted center around searching for information across different sources, monitoring the learned information and their relevance toward their goal (i.e., content evaluation; Azevedo and Cromley, 2004 ; Greene and Azevedo, 2009 ; Dever et al, 2020 ; Azevedo and Dever, 2022 ), assembling several different sources into a coherent representation of information, rehearsing information in working memory, and translating information that was collected into a different type of representation (e.g., mental representation vs. concept map; Winne, 2018 ). Operations deployed during SRL are essential to the synthesis, (mis)understanding of information, and memorization of information for situation transfer (e.g., from virtual to classroom) and information recall.…”

“…To guide learners' interactions with instructional materials, a GBLE may intentionally restrict the amount of agency learners have while still promoting their freedom in choosing the SRL strategies to be deployed. While agency as scaffolds (i.e., restricted agency as guiding learners throughout the GBLE) have been found to increase learning outcomes (Sawyer et al, 2017 ; Dever and Azevedo, 2019a ; Dever et al, 2020 ), we must ask if agency promotes a healthy balance between rigidity and adaptability as learners deploy SRL strategies to interact with instructional materials in a GBLE. A methodological approach to study this question is to use a non-linear dynamical systems theory (NDST) analytical method for understanding learners' SRL behavioral shifts during learning with a GBLE.…”