Struggle town?

Developing profiles of student confusion in simulation-based learning environments

Abstract

A considerable amount of research on emotions and learning has been undertaken in recent years. Confusion has been noted as a particularly important emotion as it has the potential to trigger students’ engagement in learning tasks. However, unresolved confusion may turn into frustration, boredom and ultimately disengagement. The study reported in this paper investigated whether learning analytics could be used to successfully determine indicators or patterns of interactions that may be associated with confusion in a simulation-based learning environment. The findings of the study indicated that when taken individually, measures on specific learning tasks only hint at when students are struggling, but when taken together these indicators present a pattern of student interactions or a student profile that could be indicative of confusion.