Designing Emotionally Sound Web-Based Instruction

Vijendra Lal

24 February, 2003

Introduction

Learning is enhanced in environments where positive emotions of learners, like pleasure and sympathy are increased, and negative emotions like fear, envy and anger are minimised.

How does your web-based course address the emotional needs of your learners? Does it increase positive emotions and decrease negative ones? This article focuses on strategies that can help instructional designers develop emotionally sound web-based instruction. It is based on the ideas expounded by Astleinter & Leuter (2000) in their paper on"Designing Instructional Technology from an Emotional Perspective",also draws upon and my own experiences in designing web-based instruction.

Rarely do we find such strategies in the literature on instructional design and online learning. So it is my hope that these strategies, which Astleintner & Leutner (2000) claim are based on studies in the fields of emotion, learning and instruction, will be useful to designers of web-based learning.

What is emotionally sound instruction and how can it be built into web-based learning?

Emotional sound instruction is instruction that uses instructional strategies, which increase positive emotions and decrease negative ones. The positive emotions relate to sympathy and Pleasure. The negative emotions relate to fear, envy and anger.

By understanding these five basic emotional conditions instructional designers will be able to use relevant strategies to produce emotionally sound web-based instruction.

The first table below outlines the positive emotions and strategies designers can build into web-based instruction to increase these emotions. The second table outlines the negative emotions and how these can be reduced in web-based instruction.

Positive emotions and strategies for building them into web-based instruction

Positive Emotions	Situations which can foster these emotions	Instructional Strategies for fostering this emotion in web-based learning
Sympathy- a positive feeling resulting in identifying with people in need of help	Environments where learners know of each others needs and support one another	Help learners develop supportive relationships via communication facilities eg. mail, chat and assist one another
	Environments which enable learners to interact with one another in a sensitive manner	Teach learners appropriate protocols for group communication eg. how to interact with one another in a sensitive manner etc.
	Environments which enable cooperative learning	Build in opportunities for cooperative learning via online learning management systems eg. forums, group project work etc.

Pleasure- a positive feeling experienced from being able to master a situation	Environments which promote a feeling of well being	Create a user friendly and easy to navigate learning environment
	Environments which provide opportunities to exercise freedom and control over important aspects of a situation	Provide structure which encourages openness and self direction as much as possible
	Environments which encourage humour	Include humour in content and design and enable students to also express humour
	Environments which provide opportunities to engage in playing games	Provide play-like activities eg. simulations, educational games etc. where appropriate

Negative emotions and strategies for reducing them in web-based instruction

Negative Emotions	Situation which can foster these emotions	Instructional Strategies for reducing this emotion in web-based learning
Fear- a negative feeling arising from feeling a threatening situation	Fear of failure	Ensure success in learning via provision of learner support eg. feedback, overviews, advance organisers, goal orientating, self checking exercises etc.
	Fear of making mistakes	Accept mistakes as opportunities for learning eg. don't highlight mistake by special sounds or graphics or error statistics. Without these bells and reminders, mistakes have a better chance of becoming a positive aspect of learning.
	Tense environments	Create a relaxed environment by building in relaxation breaks or training opportunities via use of multimedia elements
	Information overload	Enable learners to critically evaluate information to reduce redundant and irrelevant information which can cause unnecessary cognitive overloads

Envy -a negative feeling arising from wanting something others possess or not losing something one already possesses	Comparisons with other students	Encourage comparisons against ones own past performance or against defined criterion referenced standards instead of against peers.
	Unequal treatment of students in assessment	Use evaluation and grading methods which are consistent and transparent
	Uncertainty in perceptions about one another in the learning group	Encourage openness in communication within the group via providing personal information boards where students can share about themselves, their successes hopes and fears
	Unequal distribution of privileges amongst students	Distribute rewards and privileges in an objective and transparent way

Anger -a negative feeling resulting from being prevented from reaching a goal or being forced to do additional tasks	Not being able to control feelings of anger	Provide an anger button which learners can press when experiencing anger to get to a page of information on anger reducing strategies
	Being rigid in thinking	Encourage flexibility in thinking via linking information to other perspectives and viewpoints
	Not being able to express anger constructively	Allow for constructive expressions of anger via the anger button which can lead to information on how to express anger in healthy and constructive ways
	Violence in animations, text or other multimedia elements	Don't use any content which contains violence which can give rise to anger

A close look at these strategies will reveal that some of them overlap with standard instructional strategies, which are currently adopted in a lot of web-based instruction. However revisiting them from another perspective, helps reinforce the need for the design of web-based instruction, which is not only educationally sound but emotionally sound as well.

Reference:

Astleintner, Hermann & Leutner, Detlev (2000)"Designing Instructional Technology from an Emotional Perspective"Journal of Research on Computing in Education

Comments:

14 February, 2003

Cathy Baxter

Learners, including adult learners can come to learning environments with uncertainities and fears.

This table is useful in giving teachers/facilitators brief strategies for helping learners overcome these negative feelings.

Like the word 'empathy' though, much better than the condescending 'sympathy'!