WIP: Using Multimodal Approaches to Understand the Attention and Focus of Students Engaging in Intuition-Based Online Engineering Learning Games

With the emergence of advanced computing and simulation capabilities, interest in online learning tools has steadily increased over the last several decades. The use of physiological responses to explore human learning and behavior has recently become an area of investigation. It is an effective method of assessing students' attention, memory, engagement, and cognition. Previous studies have focused on developing methods for capturing and interpreting people's physiological responses as they engage in learning games. However, few have validated their reactions with other quantitative and qualitative data forms. This work-in-progress research category study leverages two theoretical frameworks, i.e., the Technology Acceptance Model and Intersectionality. Intersectional women of color within the engineering population reside at the intersection of marginalized racial and gender groups. This study also builds on our previous studies of educational games, where it was found that women students expressed a higher distaste for an engineering digital game than their male counterparts. However, an understanding of what aspects of the game lead to these sentiments and lower performance in the game was inconclusive. Hence, a multimodal research approach is used in this study that combines physiological, quantitative, and qualitative data to understand engineering undergraduate students' perceptions of an engineering mechanics intuition-based online learning game. We hypothesize that a multimodal approach for this study will further our understanding of all students' perceptions of engineering educational games and provide insight into how students learn and interact with online intuition-based games designed to facilitate learning via discovery of possible physical scenarios, leveraging pre-existing knowledge in physics and use of mobile and computer gaming technology. This study utilizes eye tracking, interviews, and an assessment instrument to understand which aspects of the learning design and educational scaffolding foster attention and focus. The findings from this study will advance the engineering education communities' understanding of how to interpret and conduct multimodal studies and how 21st-century engineering undergraduate students engage in intuition-based engineering gaming technology.