An IRS-With-Feedback and Signaling Approach to Improving University Students’ Situational Interest and Attention

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a self-developed Tablet Interactive Response System (IRS), integrated with feedback and signaling, on university students’ situational interest and attention. The participants in this study were 98 students from two national universities in northern Taiwan. They were randomly assigned to one control group and two experimental groups. After using the Tablet IRS, Experimental Group I received Knowledge of Correct Response (KCR) feedback, Experimental Group II received signaling KCR feedback, and the control group received Knowledge of Results (KR) feedback. During the experiment, the brainwave data from 24 participants were collected to investigate the effects of the Tablet IRS on their attention. The results showed a significant improvement in situational interest of the students in Experimental Group II, who had particularly high scores in the two constructs of “exploration intention” and “novelty.” The students in Experimental Group I showed significant improvement only in the construct of “challenge.” The study suggests that an IRS with signaling is conducive to students’ classroom learning. Feedback signaling can be incorporated into instructional design to promote classroom learning in close alignment with curriculum objectives and learners’ proficiency levels.