Bruce Homer and Ming Chen presenting at Cognitive Development Society

Ming Chen, a second-year doctoral student in Educational Psychology Department of Graduate Center, presented her poster along with her advisor, Dr. Bruce Homer, at the 2019 Cognitive Development Society (CDS) Conference held in Louisville, Kentucky, this past weekend (Oct 17-19). Her study investigated the effects of color, shape, and virtual agent in a 2D text-based adventure game on adults’ affect and learning outcomes during Mandarin vocabulary learning. Her research interests lie in the design theories and practices of educational games, especially within the second language acquisition field.

CDS Poster Abstract:

This research investigated how the color, shape and virtual agent of a 2D text-adventure game for HSK (a Mandarin standardized test) vocabulary learning influence adults’ affect and learning performance by implementing a 2*2*2 factorial experiment. The results showed that adult HSK learners had shorter reaction time when memorizing Mandarin vocabulary for the cool-color interface (p < 0.01) and the square-shape design (p < 0.01) compared to the warm-color interface and the round-shape design, but there were more participants feeling positively for the warm-color interface (58.82% of participants) and the round-shape design (55.88% of participants). Additionally, the effect of the virtual agent on learning performance was not significant (p = 0.314). The results are consistent with emotional design theories in that design elements are associated with learners’ emotions and learning performance, but a cultural variation with the effects of game-design features on learners’ emotions and learning results were also found.

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