Peter Leong

Role of Social Presence and Cognitive Absorption in Online Learning Environments

This article investigates the relationships between social presence, cognitive absorption, interest, and student satisfaction in online learning. A hypothesized structural equation model was developed to study these critical variables that may influence interaction in online learning environments. Contrary to expectations, the study determined that social presence does not impact satisfaction directly. However, the study concludes that while social presence is related to student satisfaction, its impact is not direct but rather mediated by cognitive absorption. In addition, the study clarified the impact of students’ interest on social presence, cognitive absorption, and satisfaction. The results of this study indicate that interest affects social presence and satisfaction directly. Additionally, interest appears to influence satisfaction indirectly through social presence and cognitive absorption. Contrary to expectations, this study did not reveal any significant relationship between interest and cognitive absorption.

3D recording as enabling technology for serious games and educational roleplaying

In this work, we propose an innovative approach, 3D recording, to support serious games and educational role-playing. 3D virtual worlds (3D VWs) are often used for generating educational content. Even though this technology allows creating full context of the real-life educational process, it is usually recorded as flat 2D video (such as Machinima in Second Life), which eliminates many advantages of the technology, such as sense of presence (Mckerlich et al. 2011). In addition, there are no systematic approaches for combining synchronous and asynchronous learning modes. We propose that 3D recording is capable of solving these challenges, as it offers an easy way for creating advanced 3D content from synchronous activities, as well as accessing this content in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.