Elsevier

Learning and Instruction

Volume 29, February 2014, Pages 128-140
Learning and Instruction

Emotional design in multimedia learning: Effects of shape and color on affect and learning

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.02.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Emotional design using color and shape can enhance learning.

  • Shape alone affected emotion and learning.

  • Color alone affected comprehension.

  • Color did not enhance transfer when combined with shape.

Abstract

We examine design factors that may evoke positive emotions in learners and investigate the effects of these positive emotions on learning. Recent research showed that the emotional design of multimedia learning material can induce positive emotions in learners that in turn facilitate comprehension and transfer. We sought to replicate these results with a different population and different mood induction procedure and examine individual emotions, and to decompose the effects of the design elements of color and shape. Study 1 showed that well-designed materials induced positive emotions and facilitated comprehension, though transfer performance was not affected by emotional design. Study 2 found that round face-like shapes both alone and in conjunction with warm color induced positive emotions. Warm colors alone, however, did not affect learners' emotions. Comprehension was facilitated by warm colors and round face-like shapes, independently as well as together. Transfer was facilitated by round face-like shapes when used with neutral colors.

Introduction

How can the design of multimedia learning materials be used to foster positive emotions, and will such positive emotions facilitate learning? In particular, how do the colors and shapes used in multimedia learning environments impact affect and learning? These questions are of importance because we know that learners experience a broad variety of emotions in academic settings that are related to academic achievement (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002), yet we are only beginning to understand which specific emotions are being experienced by learners, how these emotions affect key predictors of learning, such as students' metacognition or interest, and how students' emotions develop and are fostered through the learning environment (Pekrun, 2005). In this paper we are interested in emotional design, a term we use to describe visual design elements in multimedia learning environments that affect learners' emotions and foster learning (Um, Plass, Hayward, & Homer, 2011). The main goal of this study is to investigate whether an aesthetically appealing design of a multimedia learning material can induce positive emotions in learners, and whether positive emotions can affect cognitive outcomes (such as experienced cognitive load and learning outcomes), as well as affective outcomes (such as motivation, user satisfaction, perceived task difficulty, and perception about learning achievement). We are also interested whether design elements such as color and shape in a multimedia learning material individually induce positive emotions in learners, and how they affect cognitive as well as affective outcomes.

By addressing the role of emotion in the design of multimedia learning materials, educational psychologists can develop a more robust scientific theoretical foundation for learning with multimedia and provide better guidance to the designers of such environments. We begin this paper by briefly summarizing relevant issues of emotion and learning in general before we turn to specific studies that investigated emotion in the context of multimedia learning and present the theoretical foundation for this research, the Cognitive-Affective Theory of Learning with Media (Moreno, 2007).

Section snippets

Emotion and learning

Emotions are a result of an individual's judgment about the world and appraisal of interactions with and in the world (Desmet, 2002; Frijda, 1993; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987; Ortony, Glore, & Collins, 1988). Emotions can be described along two dimensions that affect performance, valence (positive–negative) and activation (activating–deactivating) (Pekrun, 1992; Russell, 2003). For example, happy and hopeful are positive emotions that are activating, and satisfied and calm are positive

Research questions and hypotheses

In this paper we will present two follow-up studies to our initial work. Our first study sought to replicate the Um et al. (2011) results with a different population and different mood induction procedure, and examined individual emotions of learners by asking:

Hypothesis 1

Does an aesthetically appealing design of a multimedia learning material induce positive emotions in learners? Based on the previous research reported above we hypothesize that the positive emotional design induces more positive emotions

Research questions and hypotheses

After establishing to what extent the effects we found for American undergraduate students were also found for German graduate students, Study 2 aimed to decompose the effects of the design elements color and shape by examining them in separate designs. In particular, we asked:

Hypothesis 4

Do the design elements color and shape in a multimedia learning material individually induce positive emotions in learners? Based on the previous research reported above we hypothesize that the warm colors induce more

General discussion

The purpose of this research was to replicate and extend research on the emotional design of multimedia materials and the efficacy of emotional design to facilitate learning. The Um et al. (2011) study found initial evidence supporting a facilitation hypothesis for emotional design: The positive emotional design variant was able to induce positive emotions in learners and resulted in higher comprehension performance and higher transfer performance. The authors also found that learners using the

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the German Science Foundation (DFG) for the support of this work through project DO 1237/3-1.

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