Adult learners with low literacy skills compose a highly heterogeneous population in terms of demographic variables, educational backgrounds, knowledge and skills in reading, self-efficacy, motivation etc. They also face various difficulties in consistently attending offline literacy programs, such as unstable worktime, transportation…

While the addition of an anthropomorphic interface agent to a learning system generally has little direct impact on learning, it potentially has a huge impact on learner motivation. As such agents become increasingly ubiquitous on the Internet, in virtual worlds, and as interfaces for learning and gaming systems, it is important to design them to…

Through research and personal experience, we have found that the most crucial factors determining who succeeds with clicker-based teaching, who gives up, and who merely muddles along have far more to do with instructors' deeper attitudes, models, and professional thought habits than with which "best practices" they try or what support they…

Discusses the importance of the computer-user interface for instructional multimedia materials to motivate students effectively. Motivation, functionality, learner control, cognitive optimization, interactivity, cognitive load, and screen design are discussed. (LRW)

More recent motivational research focuses on the identification of effective techniques for enhancing instructional design and meeting the needs of diverse student populations (Wlodkowski R. J., 1981). Learning-motivation researchers are applying some of the same theories and concepts found to be effective in industry to the development of…

Interactivity in the classroom is reported to promote a more active learning environment, facilitate the building of learning communities, provide greater feedback for lecturers, and help student motivation. Various definitions of interactivity exist in the literature, alternately focusing on the participants, structure and technology. The "PLS…

This paper reports on a project at Edith Cowan University (Australia) in which a multidisciplinary team designed and created a self-paced learning environment for students to learn about share valuation and investment, with a focus on the inclusion of features that would motivate students to use and engage with the program. The resultant program,…