Affect in collaborative and virtual inquiry learning: Insights into small student groups and teachers in the classroom

Research on affect in collaborative learning has previously focused on individual perceptions of affect or collective emotional atmosphere with respect to the learning situation or the environment. This dissertation aims to widen the perspective by capturing individual affect both within and between small groups, taking into account individual differences. The aim is also to investigate the role of the teacher in computer-supported collaborative learning and the importance of teacher affect. Participants were 120 students in six high schools and four teachers and their 19 small groups (56 students). A mixed-method approach was used, consisting of statistical analyses for survey data, systematic video observations, case studies and social network analysis.This dissertation is comprised of three empirical studies. In Study I, the aim was to extend understanding of affect in computer‐supported collaborative science learning by examining discrete affective states in a face‐to‐face small group setting in high schools. The results showed the significance of positive affect, especially self-assurance, in collaborative learning, but also the impact of individual differences within the group. In Study II, the aim was to examine affect within and between distinct outcome groups, and the consistency between selfreported and observed affect in the groups. The findings showed convergence in affect with the performance in the extreme groups, but more complex affect patterns in the average groups. In Study III, the aim was to investigate the role of the teacher in supporting and guiding collaborative inquiry. The results demonstrated four different time management, guidance and support practices in identical situations and environments, but similarities as well. The results also indicated that the teachers were most eager to guide the groups they perceived as active collaborators. Tunteet yhteistoiminnallisessa ja virtuaalisessa tutkivassa oppimisessa: Näkemyksiä opiskelijoiden pienryhmistä sekä opettajista luokkahuoneessa Yhteisölliseen oppimiseen liittyvä tunnetutkimus on aiemmin keskittynyt tarkastelemaan yksilöiden kokemia tunteita tai kollektiivista tunneilmapiiriä suhteessa oppimistilanteeseen ja –ympäristöön. Tässä väitöskirjassa tunteita tutkitaan laajemmin kartoittaen niin yksilöiden kokemia tunteita pienryhmätasolla kuin myös yksilöiden välisiä eroja ryhmien sisällä. Tarkastelun kohteena on myös opettajan merkitys tietokoneavusteisen yhteisöllisen oppimisen tukemisessa ja ohjauksessa, sekä opettajan tunnekokemukset. Tutkimukseen osallistui 120 opiskelijaa kuudesta lukiosta sekä neljä opettajaa ja heidän 19 pienryhmäänsä (56 opiskelijaa). Monimenetelmällinen kyselylomakkeista sekä videoista koostuva aineisto analysoitiin tilastollisesti, systemaattisella videohavainnoinnilla, tapaustutkimuksella sekä verkostoanalyysilla. Tämä väitöskirja koostuu kolmesta osatutkimuksesta. Tutkimuksessa I tavoitteena oli laajentaa ymmärrystä tunteista osana tietokoneavusteista yhteisöllistä luonnontieteiden oppimista tarkastelemalla yksittäisiä tunnetiloja kasvokkaisessa pienryhmäoppimistilanteessa lukioikäisillä. Tulokset osoittivat sekä positiivisten tunteiden että ryhmän yksilöiden välisten erojen merkittävyyden, ja korostivat itsevarmuutta yhteistoiminnallisen ja tutkivan pienryhmäoppimisen edistämisessä. Tutkimuksessa II tarkasteltiin tunteita pienryhmissä ja niiden välillä sekä itsearvioitujen ja havainnoitujen tunteiden yhdenmukaisuutta ryhmissä. Tulokset osoittivat yhdenmukaisuutta tunteiden ja suoritusten välillä, mutta keskitason ryhmissä tunnemallit olivat monimutkaisempia. Tutkimuksessa III tavoitteena oli tarkastella opettajan roolia yhteistoiminnallisen tutkivan oppimisen tukijana ja ohjaajana, sekä opettajan tunteita. Tulosten perusteella rakentui neljä erilaista käytäntöä tuelle, ohjaukselle sekä ajankäytölle. Tulokset myös osoittivat opettajien ohjaavan mieluiten ryhmiä, jotka he kokivat aktiivisiksi yhteistoimijoiksi

A Dual-Modal System that Evaluates User's Emotions in Virtual Learning Environments and Responds Affectively

Endowing learning systems with emotion awareness features (capture user's affective state and provide affective feedback), seems quite promising. This paper describes a system implementation that provides emotion awareness, both explicitly, by self-reporting of emotions through a usable web tool, and implicitly, via sentiment analysis. Prominent theories, models and techniques of emotion, emotion learning, emotion detection and affective feedback are reviewed. We also present findings from our experiment with university students, validating the explicit mechanism in real education settings. Finally, we set open issues for future experimentation, contributing to the research agenda

Human-Computer Interaction

In this book the reader will find a collection of 31 papers presenting different facets of Human Computer Interaction, the result of research projects and experiments as well as new approaches to design user interfaces. The book is organized according to the following main topics in a sequential order: new interaction paradigms, multimodality, usability studies on several interaction mechanisms, human factors, universal design and development methodologies and tools

Affective Computing

This book provides an overview of state of the art research in Affective Computing. It presents new ideas, original results and practical experiences in this increasingly important research field. The book consists of 23 chapters categorized into four sections. Since one of the most important means of human communication is facial expression, the first section of this book (Chapters 1 to 7) presents a research on synthesis and recognition of facial expressions. Given that we not only use the face but also body movements to express ourselves, in the second section (Chapters 8 to 11) we present a research on perception and generation of emotional expressions by using full-body motions. The third section of the book (Chapters 12 to 16) presents computational models on emotion, as well as findings from neuroscience research. In the last section of the book (Chapters 17 to 22) we present applications related to affective computing

Human Machine Interaction

In this book, the reader will find a set of papers divided into two sections. The first section presents different proposals focused on the human-machine interaction development process. The second section is devoted to different aspects of interaction, with a special emphasis on the physical interaction

Bonding Over Distances: Building Social Presence Using Mixed Reality for Transnational Families

Sparked by the frustrations experienced in transnational family communication and inspired by an interest in exploring the potentials of a mixed reality (MR) future landscape, this study investigates the primary research question: how can we use mixed reality to build social presence for transnational family communication? This study reviews literature and contextual works from relevant fields, including presence and social presence, mixed reality, transnational relationships (inter-family and human-space relationships), and technology for social presence for transnational families. Then, the researcher situates this study at the intersection of the before mentioned categories. Utilizing the Research through Design methodology and paired user testing methods, this study describes 4 iterative MR prototypes for building social presence for transnational families, highlighting each prototype’s relation to a secondary research question, exploration goals, features, performance evaluation, and takeaways for the next iteration. Then, it documents and analyzes data collected from in-depth user testing sessions with 6 transnational family pairs totaling 12 participants, each with one member living locally (in Toronto), and the other overseas. The quantitative and qualitative data were collected from different components of the user testing, including observation notes from paired-up live connection sessions for collaborative tasks, interviews, and online surveys. This study contributes to theory at the overlapping fields of social presence, mixed reality research, transnational family relationship, and human-space relationship. The mixed reality prototypes, design frameworks, and evaluation criteria for designing mixed reality spaces to build social presence for transnational families also provide significance to design practice

Time and the digital: whitehead, deleuze and the temporality of digital aesthetics

The aesthetics of digital art seem to be inextricable from time and process. Surprisingly though, interaction with digital systems has traditionally been marked by spatial concepts and metaphors, positioning the aesthetics of interaction as a convergence of spaces where data and agents 'meet'. This preoccupation with space has placed restrictions on aesthetic theories that seek to represent interaction with digital systems. Within this dissertation, I argue that questions of time and the more specific questions of the temporal and 'temporalising' nature of interaction have been neglected. Through a process-oriented investigation of interactive digital art works, produced by a range of artists such as George Legrady, Jeffrey Shaw, along with Dennis Del Favero, Peter Weibel and Neil Brown and Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, I address this problem and propose a temporal aesthetic theory of interaction. I thus offer a specific understanding of digital aesthetics in which the process of interaction is foregrounded. I work towards this aesthetic theory of interaction by firstly enacting particular tenets of A. N. Whitehead's process philosophy and Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of time, informed by Brian Massumi, Manuel DeLanda and Michel Serres. These thinkers are used to develop a theoretical framework that centres on an understanding of time, process and the event. Directed by this framework, I firstly investigate several non-interactive works by David Claerbout, Bill Viola and the installations of Dan Graham. This investigation of non-interactive works provides the grounding from which I argue that the digital re-presentation of events produces a particular type of time. Thus, particular processes, such as the technological mediation of events, exemplified in the work of Claerbout, Viola and Graham, can be thought to produce their own type of time. From here I propose that, when the process of interaction is introduced into the aesthetic event, time is both produced by digital re-presentations and also encountered in interaction. As a user comes into contact with a database of information, they encounter a particular type of time. In this event, the database enacts a temporal aesthetic in the sense that it archives various sections of the past, and then these are made available again for the user in the present (or for other users in the future). A user is able to navigate through these sections of past, experiencing them simultaneously, or in a nonlinear fashion, or re-sorting them into a temporal order. Motivated by this Whiteheadian approach and by investigating a set of artworks that utilise archives, such as those of the Atlas Group, Armin Linke, George Legrady, Luc Courchesne and Masaki Fujihata, I develop a temporal aesthetic theory that accounts for the multiple modes of temporality immanent to digital interaction. My understanding of Whitehead's conception of time is modulated by Deleuze's philosophy of the virtual. Enlisting what Steven Shaviro would term Whitehead's "pursuit of univocity" or an object-oriented philosophy, I focus upon the event as a processual encounter. Using the paradigm established by Whitehead's panexperietialism, I view all the digital actants as processes. These processes ¬ software, archiving, visualisation or the physical processes of interaction ¬ all transpire over different scales of time, producing different temporal rhythms. Informed by Whitehead, Deleuze and supplemented by Serres, I thus propose a type of time that is scalar. Here, digital temporality can be seen to yield nonlinear and chaotic temporalities, produced by, and encountered in, interactive events. User-generated occasions are sequential, software occasions are asynchronous, and the temporality of the archive nests within it various levels of the past. The interactive event is the coming together of these occasions an event in which we encounter multiple scales of the temporal; an event that I will describe as multi-temporal in nature

Modeling Learner Mood In Realtime Through Biosensors For Intelligent Tutoring Improvements

Computer-based instructors, just like their human counterparts, should monitor the emotional and cognitive states of their students in order to adapt instructional technique. Doing so requires a model of student state to be available at run time, but this has historically been difficult. Because people are different, generalized models have not been able to be validated. As a person’s cognitive and affective state vary over time of day and seasonally, individualized models have had differing difficulties. The simultaneous creation and execution of an individualized model, in real time, represents the last option for modeling such cognitive and affective states. This dissertation presents and evaluates four differing techniques for the creation of cognitive and affective models that are created on-line and in real time for each individual user as alternatives to generalized models. Each of these techniques involves making predictions and modifications to the model in real time, addressing the real time datastream problems of infinite length, detection of new concepts, and responding to how concepts change over time. Additionally, with the knowledge that a user is physically present, this work investigates the contribution that the occasional direct user query can add to the overall quality of such models. The research described in this dissertation finds that the creation of a reasonable quality affective model is possible with an infinitesimal amount of time and without “ground truth” knowledge of the user, which is shown across three different emotional states. Creation of a cognitive model in the same fashion, however, was not possible via direct AI modeling, even with all of the “ground truth” information available, which is shown across four different cognitive states