Gabriella Tisza

Children’s motivation and engagement in learning act as cornerstones for positive academic outcomes. While gamification is extensively studied as a strategy for making learning fun, there remains a limited understanding of other factors that contribute to a fun learning experience, particularly within formal educational settings. Addressing this research gap, this qualitative study sought to explore the elements primary school students aged 9 to 12 perceive as contributing to fun in learning, focusing on aspects beyond gamification. Firsthand perspectives were collected based on classroom observations (N = 48 students), focus group interviews with students (N = 12), and a semi-structured interview with an expert. The analysis of the students’ viewpoints revealed the following six key, non-gamification elements, consistently associated with fun in learning; sense of agency, challenge, diversity in learning, pleasure, low-stress climate, and peer interaction. Evaluated and contextualized by expert insights, these findings offer fresh perspectives on the elements that primary school students perceived as an enhancement for having fun while learning. Overall, the study provides specific, non-gamification insights that can foster and enhance fun in learning, and offers practical recommendations for educators, potentially informing the development of both offline and online educational practices.

Smartwatches are emerging as an increasingly popular platform for longitudinal in situ data collection with methods often referred to as experience sampling and ecological momentary assessment. Their small size challenges designers of relevant applications to ensure usability and a positive user experience. This paper investigates the usability of different input techniques for responding to in situ surveys administered on smartwatches. In this paper, we classify different input techniques that can support this task. Then, we report on two user studies that compared different input techniques and their suitability at two levels of user activity: while sitting and while walking. A pilot study (N = 18) examined numeric input with three input techniques that utilize common features of smartwatches with a touchscreen: Multi-Step Tapping, Bezel Rotation, and Swiping. The main study (N = 80) examined numeric input and list selection including in the comparison two more techniques: Long-List Tapping and Virtual Buttons to scroll through options. Overall, we found that whether users are seated or walking did not affect the speed or accuracy of input. Bezel rotation was the slowest input technique but also the most accurate. Swiping resulted in most errors. Long-List Tapping yielded the shortest reaction times. Future research should examine different form factors for the smartwatch and diverse usage contexts.

There is a worldwide pursuit to increase children’s interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) especially in computer science through extra-curricular activities such as coding workshops, hackathons, and FabLab initiatives. However, the underlying reasons for children’s willingness for participation in such activities, and the effect of participation on children’s topic-related knowledge are still not well understood. In order to understand the factors influencing children’s attitude about programming and investigate what effects children’s learning during such activities, we designed a workshop for introducing primary school children to programming, and implemented it for a Dutch primary school class (n = 23) as an exploratory case study. We recorded their attitudes towards programming, their state-level emotions, the fun they experienced, and the initial- and final knowledge on the topic and their gender for comparative purposes. Our findings indicate that the coding workshop had a positive effect on children’s state-level emotions, as children felt significantly happier, more excited and more in control at the end of the workshop than at the beginning of it. We also found that children’s attitude toward programming changed significantly and positively during the workshop, and that children’s attitude about programming is influenced by the experienced fun while learning to code regardless their gender. Additionally, we found that the workshop was successful in terms of knowledge acquisition: both the measured and the reported learning indicate that children learned during the activity. Our findings also indicate that children’s reported learning has a positive association with their state-level emotion feeling in control and that the measured learning is negatively influenced by high levels of stress. Accordingly, our results draw attention to the downshifting effect of high arousal emotions on the measured learning. Throughout the paper we discuss gender differences along the study findings and elaborate on further practical implications.

Despite the increasing demand for non-formal science learning activities, few studies report on practitioners' perspectives and experiences with designing and implementing such activities worldwide. This paper focuses on their challenges by drawing upon twenty-two interviews with practitioners involved in diverse science learning activities in various non-formal settings in seven European countries. By including diverse activities and settings, this study contributes to the existing knowledge base, addresses the aforementioned gap in the literature, and informs future practices. Our findings suggest that despite the existing and celebrated diversity, practitioners face similar challenges related to (a) the activities' organisation and management, (b) the competencies required to run such activities, and (c) the attitudes held by the parties involved in them. Direct interview quotes exemplify each theme, further pinpointing the interconnection of multiple factors that inform the organisation and implementation of non-formal science learning activities. The findings allowed for a deeper understanding of challenges reported in the literature and shed light on the challenges voiced by the practitioners including the multiple competencies required and the workload. We conclude with a discussion foregrounding the need to build a knowledge base of shared practices in the field of non-formal science learning.

Researchers and practitioners in learning sciences, educational technology and child-computer interaction often argue that fun is an essential element of learning. Therefore, researchers in the above fields aim to explore how learning activities could be made more enjoyable in order to facilitate engagement in the learning process and to improve the learning outcomes. Despite such wide interest, there has been little systematic effort to define and measure fun. The herein introduced research aims to (a) define the term “fun” and (b) to create a tool for the reliable measurement of it. In the first study testing the initial item pool 75 students (μ_age = 11.78); in the think-aloud study testing the comprehensibility of the items six 11-year-old children and in the final validation study, 128 students (μ_age = 12.15) participated. We applied a deductive scale development approach. For the model testing, CFA was used and second-order latent variable models were fitted. In this paper, we conceptualize the term of fun and introduce the final 18-item version of the FunQ that consists of six dimensions (Autonomy, Challenge, Delight, Immersion, Loss of Social Barriers and Stress) and bears with the appropriate validity and reliability measures (ω_overall = 0.875 and ω_partial = 0.864; RMSEA = 0.052 and SRMR = 0.072). We contribute with (a) a review of the literature regarding the concept of fun, (b) a conception of fun as a multidimensional theoretically motivated concept, (c) a multidimensional instrument for assessing experienced fun—the FunQ—and (d) a psychometric evaluation of the proposed instrument. FunQ is put forward as a reliable and much-needed addition to the current palette of instruments.