As described above, a summary of the results of this study are given in Table 5.11.
Table 5.11 Summary of results for hypotheses
Hypotheses Results
H1a. Children perceive a higher degree of social presence in a speech-output environment than in a nonspeech-output environment.
supported
H1b. Children perceive a higher degree of social presence in an active-interactivity environment than in a passive-interactivity environment.
supported
H2a. Children will be more socially attracted to a speech-output computer than to a nonspeech-output computer.
supported
H2b. Children are more socially attracted to an active-interactivity computer than to a passive-interactivity computer.
supported
H3a. Children participating in a learning activity with a speech-output environment will be more intrinsically motivated than with a nonspeech-output environment.
supported
H3b. Children participating in a learning activity with an active-interactivity environment will be more intrinsically motivated than those with a passive-interactivity environment.
supported
5-9 Discussion
This study investigates the effects of speech and interactivity in the e-learning environment on children attitudes toward computers and learning activity. According to the aforementioned studies, speech can be associated with human-to-human relationship while active interactivity bears features of message exchange and role exchange resembling to the nature of interpersonal communication. This study tries to utilize these features as social cues incorporated into the e-learning environment to enhance the social attributes of the computer.
The results show that speech and active interactivity can empower a computer to produce strong feelings of social presence and trigger children’s social attraction. Moreover, they could be manipulated in an e-learning environment to foster a child’s intrinsic motivation.
As for whether it is true that children tend to anthropomorphize computers regardless of the availability of any social cue, the results reveal that children can perceive the social attractiveness of a computer and therefore view the computer more as a social entity than a tool.
The findings further indicate that such awareness can be influenced significantly and positively by the social cues rendered by a computer interface. Such a social interface enables a computer to establish a close relationship with children and enhance their recognition of the computer,
which may in turn motivate children to learn and engage them in the interaction.
Added to this, a major finding of the study is that feelings of social presence play a major role in mediating children’s intrinsic motivation. There was a positive correlation between children’s intrinsic motivation and social presence. Studies suggest that high levels of social presence create an environment that is felt as being accepting and will produce positive results on student learning. The social presence addressed in those studies involved the degree of interpersonal contact with the instructor and other participants in an online learning environment. The present study further suggests that the perceived social presence provided by a computer can function as a way to reduce a child’s feeling of isolation, and lead to enhance his or her motivation while interacting with an e-learning environment with no instructor or other peers involved.
The analysis of the results of the present study comes to the following conclusions to be discussed as follows: 1) Speech intensifies the sense of social presence in an e-learning environment 2) Interactivity entails rich social traits, and 3) Effects of Interactivity and Speech in Social Roles of Computers.
5-9.1 Speech intensifies the sense of social presence in e-learning environments
The use of speech function in an e-learning environment does more than simply add an auditory channel. It helps intensify the sense of social presence. The social attribute of the speech function renders the computer with a social attraction-- a talking computer that directs children to intuitively associate the human-to-computer interaction with human-to-human relationships.
Judging by the children’s reactions, a talking computer seems to change their perception of a computer being an inanimate object and make children feel that they are interacting with a social entity. Experimenters have found that, upon hearing spoken words, children’s facial expressions became livelier than they were when merely reading written words or symbols. It could be found that many children unintentionally grinned at or nodded to computers when given the spoken
instruction of “answer right”. Goffman (1959) contented that humans construct their self-presentations and carry them off in front of others either intentionally or unintentionally.
Hence, social presence conveyed by speech such an explicit signal that the perceiver evokes of moved and expressive body.
In term of improving children’s intrinsic motivation, the findings indicate speech is conducive to children’s experiences of relatedness and competence. In addition, results show that using speech in e-learning environments can actively engage children so that they are willing to do the given math exercises again. This suggests that a computer with oral guidance and feedback can create a close bond between children and the computer, and this bond reinforces a confidence in their own competence. However, speech dose not influence the experiences of self-determination and tension. These findings show that a channel as sensible as speech does not easily affect a child’s perception of self-determination. Interestingly, speech feedback can reinforce children’s confidence in their own competence, but it can also cause anxiety for some children when they fail to give correct answers. This could be the reason why speech has no significant effect on tension. Klein et al. (2002) have pointed out that applying social-affective skills to enable a system to respond with emotion support can minimize user frustration. Thus, the role of emotions in speech output should be concerned.