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Communicating through body: a situated embodiment-based strategy with flag semaphore for procedural knowledge construction

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Abstract

Situated learning suggests that knowledge is grounded in and influenced by the learning context, the activity, and the culture. Thus, learning in such situated learning contexts can improve learners’ learning performance. Based on embodied cognition and situated learning, this study proposes a situated embodiment-based strategy to help learners learn flag semaphore through real signaling practices with their body movements in a richly perceived learning context. With the support of natural user interface technologies and educational robots, the situated embodiment-based strategy provides a realistic learning context via learners’ body movements to help learners easily construct procedural knowledge. In order to evaluate the effects of the situated embodiment-based strategy, a flag semaphore learning activity was designed and a quasi-experiment was conducted with 60 participants. Three variables were assessed, namely practical signaling performance, attention, and cognitive load. The results showed that the situated embodiment-based learning group had significantly higher practical signaling performance and attention, and significantly lower extrinsic cognitive load than the embodiment-based learning group. The findings suggest that the situated embodiment-based learning strategy is an effective design that can improve the procedural knowledge construction and enhance the attention level with the lower extrinsic cognitive load in a learning process.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan under Project Numbers MOST 103-2511-S-110-002-MY3, NSC 102-2911-I-110-501, and NSC 101-2511-S-110-003-MY3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-sen University, 70 Lienhai Rd., Kaohsiung, 80424, Taiwan, ROC

    I-Chun Hung, Hsiu-Hao Hsu & Nian-Shing Chen

  2. School of Computing and Information Systems, Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, Athabasca, AB T9S 3A3, Canada

    Kinshuk

Authors
  1. I-Chun Hung
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  2. Hsiu-Hao Hsu
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  3. Nian-Shing Chen
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  4. Kinshuk
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Correspondence to Nian-Shing Chen.

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Hung, IC., Hsu, HH., Chen, NS. et al. Communicating through body: a situated embodiment-based strategy with flag semaphore for procedural knowledge construction. Education Tech Research Dev 63, 749–769 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-015-9386-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-015-9386-5

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