Affective impact of navigational and signaling aids to e-learning
College students had 30min to study a 17-frame online lesson on distance learning that included navigational aids (for showing the learners location in the lesson), signaling aids (for highlighting the important content), both aids, or no aids. On a 30-item usability survey consisting of 8 usability scales, students who received navigational aids produced significantly higher mean ratings on each of the 8 usability scalesease of use, satisfaction of use, awareness of lesson structure, awareness of lesson length, awareness of location, ease of navigation, lesson comprehension, and lesson learningwith effect sizes ranging from d=0.50 to d=1.35. Students who received signaling aids produced significantly higher ratings on 4 of the 8 usability scalesease of use, satisfaction of use, lesson comprehension, and lesson learning with effect sizes ranging from d=0.39 to d=2.15. Results help to clarify the mechanism underlying previous findings showing that students learned more from e-lessons that contained navigational aids. In the present study, there was a significant positive correlation between usability rating and recall test score for 5 of the 8 usability scales (particularly for ease of use), indicating partial support for the prediction that learners satisfaction with an e-learning system is related to their learning outcome. Results support the predictions of the emotional design hypothesis and have implications for the design of e-learning interfaces.
signaling aids navigational aids usability e-lessons e-readers