| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 資訊管理研究所 === 102 === Emotions are a major part of the reaction of learners to learning materials. Learners can be distracted due to the learning materials are not fit their skill. If learners feel negative emotions during courses, they may discontinue their learning. Thus, finding ways to keep learners feeling positive is an important part of instruction. Flow theory proposed by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975 argues that the challenge-skill balance is a precondition for flow experience. When the challenge of learning is higher than the learners’ ability, the learners will feel anxiety, and when it is lower than learners’ ability, the learners will feel boredom. When the challenge of learning matches the learners’ ability, a flow experience will appear. Enjoyment emotion will be in company with flow experience. However the current empirical study of 151 participants in computer-based instruction and 110 participants in the courses of algorithm and computer programming reveals that emotions related to enjoyment may appear when the learners’ skill is equal to or higher than the learning challenge. Nevertheless, boredom may appear when the learning is difficult but unimportant. When the learning content is difficult, learners may feel boredom as well as anxiety. If learners regard the learning as unimportant, they may feel boredom when the learning content is difficult. In this situation, there may be a trend for learners to discontinue their learning, since they cannot complete the learning contents and feel that the learning content is unimportant. However, if learners regard the learning as important, they will feel anxiety when the learning content is difficult. In this situation, learners may try, but fail, to complete the learning content. Anxiety and frustration may appear in this situation. High performance would strengthen the level of learners’ positive emotion. On the contrary, low performance would strengthen learners’ negative emotion and feel that the learning content is unimportant. Based on the results of the empirical survey, we suggest that instruction development should avoid developing learning material that is beyond the learners’ ability, especially when some learners regard the learning as unimportant.
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