Exploring relationships between learners' affective states, metacognitive processes, and learning outcomes

Abstract

We used a false biofeedback methodology to investigate interactions among learners' affective states, metacognitive processes, and learning outcomes during multimedia learning. False-biofeedback is a method to induce physiological arousal (and resultant emotions) by presenting learners with audio stimuli of false heartbeats that are either accelerated, baseline, or control (no heartbeat). A path analysis indicated that the most complex relationships among affective states, metacognitive processes, and learning outcomes occurred when learners were presented with accelerated biofeedback. We discuss the implications of our findings for the development of ITSs that are sensitive to the complex relationship among these key processes. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.