Early use of Internet-based educational resources: effects on students' engagement modes and flow experience

This case study explores how educational training and clinical practice that uses personal computers (PCs) and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to access Internet-based medical information, affects the engagement modes of students, flow experience components, and IT-competence. A questionnaire assessing these variables was administered before and after a training course. A follow-up interview investigated the contextual factors related to the use of PDAs. There were significant increases in IT-competence and in the positive and negative modes of engagement except for the Ambition/Curiosity mode. The overall flow experience did not change significantly over time. The PDA users showed an increase in negative modes across time larger than PC users due to technical, emotional, and motivational factors. This study concludes that a student's interaction with PCs and, in particular, PDAs produces positive and negative engagement modes and flow experiences that can be better understood by using the Engagement Modes model (EM-model).