FINDING THE CORNERSTONES IN E-LEARNING: THE ROLE OF PERCEIVED COMPETENCE AND ENJOYMENT IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

摘要

According to the Self-Determination Theory, it is important for individuals to feel competent about a behaviour or behavioural domain to display optimal motivation, performance, and well-being. So, the perception of competence for an activity facilitates people's goal attainment and also provides them with a sense of need satisfaction from engaging in an activity with which they feel effective. Accordingly, perceived competence in an activity could favour an individual's perception of learning in that area. However, this relationship could be reinforced if people enjoyed themselves while doing that particular activity. In fact according to the Self-Determination Theory, enjoyment is considered a good indicator of intrinsic motivation. These considerations are also transferable to those virtual environments where the achievement of effective learning (i.e., e-learning) becomes a main goal. This study aims to analyse the relationship between students' perceived competence and learning during an activity, and to also explore the possible moderator role of enjoyment in this relationship in order to enhance this linkage. The sample comprised university students from Castellon (Spain). They used EVAI (in English: Virtual Interactive Learning Environment) and, specifically, the so-called Human Site application (www.humansite.net) in one subject in the last academic year/semester. Students completed a questionnaire about their experiences while using Human Site prior to their exam covering the subject. Confidentiality of their responses was completely guaranteed. We used two subscales from The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) (e.g., Ryan, 1982; Plant & Ryan, 1985; Ryan, Connell, & Plant, 1990; Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994), the perceived competence subscale and the enjoyment subscale. The last subscale is considered the self-report measure of intrinsic motivation. We also assessed the learning perceived by these students. As expected, the results show a positive relationship between perceived competence and perceived learning, that is, the perception of being competent in the virtual task resulted in a higher perceived learning. Moreover, enjoyment moderated this relationship: those students who enjoyed themselves while using the e-learning environment for their academic activities, self-reported a higher level of learning than those who showed a lower degree of enjoyment, especially when they felt more competent. Thus, our results reveal the potential of enjoyment while using virtual environments for academic purposes and also the need to change the elearning platform interface and to focus on enjoying the learning process itself. Future research should be done on structural changes in the EVAI for it to become an “edutainment platform”.