The role of emotions and task significance in Virtual Education

This paper analyzed the role of emotions in a virtual world (Second Life) through students' level of enjoyment and boredom and their influence on students' achievement level. The virtual world was an educational tool used to fully immerse students in the content of the course. In addition to supporting prior research on the importance of task value on academic enjoyment, the current research provides a new perspective on the relationship between academic emotions and academic success, particularly for virtual worlds. A regression analysis was conducted to measure the relationship of task value and emotions on two types of academic performance: Individual exam scores and team scores on their Second Life assignment. Pekrun's Academic Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) was used to measure two academic emotions: boredom and enjoyment. Both academic emotions were measured on an individual level. Results from this study show that task value was positively related to enjoyment and negatively related to boredom, yet it was unrelated to academic performance. While enjoyment had a positive relationship to exam performance, boredom also had a positive relationship to the team assignment conducted in the virtual world. The possibility that students might have answered the AEQ relating to the theoretical aspects of the course instead of the practical aspects of the Second Life Assignment, may be one possible explanation for this result.