Children, engagement and enjoyment in digital narrative

Abstract

There have been many experiments being carried out in recent years by educators and designers in the digital narrative areas which engaged children progressively in the story environment in order to ensure that the experience is fun and enjoyable while maintaining the educational values (Robertson & Good, 2005). However, with the research and experiments in place, the demand is more focused on more engagement and enjoyment in children learning and digital playing environment. The intention of this study is to look into children’s engagement and enjoyment in a 3D digital narrative environment and to find out their likes and dislikes based on their experience. This study focuses specifically on how children interact with the Quest Atlantis and seeks to identify participants' enjoyment level by applying the combination of Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) instrument (Ryan, 2006) and smileyometer (Read, MacFarlane, & Casey, 2002). Engagement was measured by time related factors as well as observation of each participant’s facial expression. Data sources used in this study include questionnaire, interview content, observational notes, and time records while a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches was employed for analyzing the data. Findings of this study showed that in general, there was a high level of enjoyment which demonstrates a fun environment in terms of interest, enjoyment, perceived competency and perceived choice. Perceived choice was reported positive with low degree of pressure and tension. The related time duration data also showed that there was a high- level of engagement among the participants of this study. Facial expression observed from the children supported the results from the time related analysis while interview responses provided some interesting points about their enjoyment features. In this paper, the implication for digital narrative design, engagement features, and IMI scale findings will be discussed.