'The paper book is dead.' This sentence is said by professor Nicholas Negroponte in a conference under the theme of 'Future of Technology' in August, 2010. He expected that the paper age would soon end and newspaper would disappear within next 5 years...
'The paper book is dead.' This sentence is said by professor Nicholas Negroponte in a conference under the theme of 'Future of Technology' in August, 2010. He expected that the paper age would soon end and newspaper would disappear within next 5 years. Like reflecting such stream of times, Korean government recently declared the introduction of digital textbook in all elementary, middle and high schools in Korea until 2015 as well as the smart-education strategies. However some in the educational filed express some worries about the declaration, because several problems as much as benefits from the smart educational environment are anticipated.
In this time, this study recognized the need of systemic research about digital textbooks, and focused the interest factors in terms of digital textbook user interface. Interesting learning experience improves the learner's learning motive, and influences his/her future learning goals, leading to some educational achievements. This study was conducted through mainly two courses. The first course, the main purpose of this study, was to explore the matter of user interface from the perspective of UX(user experience) design, and to systematically construct the interest factors for the digital textbook user interface design. The second course was to verify the structured interest factors' positive influence on the learner's learning motive, and to investigate the structured interest factors' educational meanings in terms of the user interface design.
For the first course, this study drew out necessary interest factors for a digital textbook through the literature review and the expert Delphi method and conceptualized the factors. This study investigated the concepts and kinds of interest which have been discussed from Herbart's theory, Dewey's theory to the modern interest theory through long history, and based them to set necessary interest factors for the digital textbook user interface. To collect deeper and more various factors in the step drawing out the digital textbook UI interest factor based on the literature review, the investigator intensively discovered interest factors for the digital textbook UL through the interview with expert panels.
Meanwhile, it needs researches to recognize and systematically analyze the strengths and the weaknesses of digital textbook UI currently being utilized in order to raise the digital textbook using learner's safety and the digital textbook's successful establishment. For this purpose, this study compared, analyzed the UI factors(user experience factors) from the operation report of current digital textbook researching school and the data based on the digital textbook UI experts' evaluation. From the comparison and analysis, this study set the draft of interest factors for the digital textbook UI. Based on this draft, the investigator produced a semi-open questionnaire and conducted the expert Delphi survey for 3 times targeting academic experts and practical experts. And the investigator classified the interest factors of digital textbook UI from the survey results into 7 factors: 'empirical interest factor', 'sympathetic interest factor', 'aesthetic interest factor', 'manipulative interest factor', 'cognitive interest factor', 'intellectual interest factor', and 'social interest factor'. And the investigator evaluated the importances of each interest factor and its sub items using the 5-point Lickertis scale. Through the above courses, this study manipulated the interest factors and completed to correct and complement detail items through experts' final check.
Following the first research course modelling the interest factors in the digital textbook, the investigator tried to find out the relationship between the digital textbook users' perceiving interests and the learning motive based on the interest factors drawn out of the second research course. To set the research targets for achieving the purposes of study, the investigator conducted the survey around the elementary schooler group and the middle schooler group who are main user groups of future digital textbooks, and researched about the digital textbook's differences in the both groups and its influences on the both groups' learning motive. ①The investigator researched about what interest factors were differently perceived by learners according to the classification of elementary/middle school grades. ②The investigator researched about what interest factors were differently perceived by learners according to the use or not of current digital textbooks. ③ The investigator verified the digital textbook users' perceived interest's positive influence on the learning motive.
The research questions for this study are summarized as follows.
[Research Question 1] What interest factors are there for the digital textbook user interface, and how must they be manipulated?
[Research Question 2] Is any difference among the interest factors perceived by learners according to their experience or not about current digital textbooks?
[Hypothesis] The interest level perceived by learners who experienced current digital textbooks will be higher than the learners not experiencing such textbooks.
[Research Question 3] According to the difference between elementary and middle school grades, are there any difference among the interest factors perceived by learners.
[Hypothesis] The learners' perceived interest levels in the elementary schooler group will be higher than that of middle schooler group.
[Research Question 4] Does the learner's perceived interest factor positively influence on the learning motive?
[Hypothesis] The learner's perceived interest factor will positively influence on the learning motive.
The research results of above research questions are summarized as follows.
Concerning the [research question 1], as mentioned above, the 7 interesting factors were drawn out from the literature review and the expert Delphi method, and the concepts could be manipulated.
Concerning the [research question 2], the investigator conducted the t-test on independent samples, and found the result that current digital textbook experiencing learner's interest factor levels were generally higher than those of non-experiencers. As seen in the above theoretical background, this result can be interpreted as that the interest is created from the relationship between individual and an object and specific contact with digital textbooks influences on learner's direct interest, that is the user's perceived interest.
To verify the [research question 3], the investigator also conducted the t-test on independent samples, and found the result that elementary schooler group's interest factor levels were higher than those of middle schooler group, so there was some significant difference between the both groups. It can be interpreted that these results support Dewey' interest theory that interest types have their unique development stages according to a man's growth steps. Teenager period is the period that social and theoretical interests become higher due to altruistic, intellectual demands. Child period which is immature in the interest development stage shows higher interest in instrumental interest enabling to manipulate by hand. From the perspective seeing the digital textbook as a kind instrument for learning, it may be interpreted that the elementary schooler group show high interest in manipulating instruments.
To find out the digital textbook-using learner's perceived interest factors' influence on the learning motive suggested by [research question 4], the investigator conducted the hierarchical regression analysis which controlled subjects' individual characteristics. As the result of analysis, as the computer use time was lower, the learning motive was higher, and the male students' learning motive was higher than that of female students. Among the sub factors of learning motive, the attention factor was higher in students with better academic scores and in higher grade (middle schoolers> elementary schoolers). The relevance was also higher than higher-grade students. Concerning the interest factors' influence on learning motive, the main issue of [research question 4], it was found that the 4 interest factors among the all 7 factors drawn from this study positively (+) influenced on the learning motive. The 4 influencing factors are the cognitive interest factor, the sympathetic interest factor, the aesthetic interest factor, and the intellectual interest factor. Over 4 factors of the all drawn interest factors were found to influence on the learning motive, so the hypothesis of [research question 4] insisting that learner's perceived interest factor in the digital textbook user interface would influence on the learning motive was selected. These results have significant meaning in that the educational values of interest factors drawn from this study were identified.
By doing so, this study's research questions and each hypothesis were verified.
What the investigator insists through this study is about dealing more fundamental aspect in the user interface design, and about focusing on the matter of user's experience in the user interface filed which emphasized the usability. Bonsipe(2003, p. 56) expressed that a design is a special-shaped innovation activity focusing on the user group's matter, and the design seen from the conceptual aspect of concerns about the users is the point meeting with a kind of ethics. Sympathizing his opinion that positioning the design in the inside of man's effective behavior field instead the traditional interpretation regulating the design as 'shape', 'function', and 'style', the investigator also tries not to stay the interface design's role in visual borders like decoration, stimulants and cosmetic techniques. That is, the investigator tries to understand the matter of interface design as the course of thought and cognition dealing with the user group's experience matter going out of the attitude paying attention on only the usability aspect or aesthetic aspect like appearance or shape.
In dealing with the matter of digital textbook user interface design, this study tried to draw out the results through the most systematic, scientific research methods like the users' experiences, the experts' opinions, and the connection with previous studies. This study course is meaningful in that it suggests a fundamental, basic frame in an aspect of UX design by constructing the interest factors in terms of digital textbook user interface design. And this study has an educational meaning in that the drawn interest factors' positive influences on the learning motive could predict meaningful influence on future school achievement.
The digital textbook interface is both the channel for learners to approach to the textbook contents and relevant materials and the communication space where the learners and the teachers meet. Designing some interesting interfaces at designing the digital textbook interfaces is important because such designs should effective deliver the educational contents and should consider their educational meaning of learning filed where teachers and students meet and exchange their opinions.