The entity belief of concentration ability predicts cognitive load, failure-attribution, and flow experience when using a virtual reality device

ABSTRACT

Attentional control theory indicates that concentration is considered an important variable that contributes to learning. There are some devices for players to practice their concentration, but there are few virtual reality (VR) designs which can increase the level of difficulty for students to discipline their mental concentration with incongruent hands-on movement. To address this gap, a VR system named Tracking Fun was designed, which requires hand-eye coordination to move a ball to a target hole. To explore the effect of playing Tracking-fun on players’ concentration performance, the study explored the relationship among entity beliefs of concentration ability (EBCA), intrinsic cognitive load (ICL), failure attribution of VR operation (FAVRO), flow experience, and gameplay performance. Students from a skills-based senior high school took part in this experimental research, and 259 valid questionnaires were returned. The research results showed that: EBCA can positively predict cognitive load; EBCA can positively predict FAVRO; ICL and flow have a negative correlation; FAVRO can negatively predict flow experience when interacting with VR; and flow can negatively predict gameplay performance. Based on the results, enriching the opportunity and difficulty level of Tracking-fun can enhance players’ concentration. Follow-up research suggestions are proposed.

KEYWORDS:

• Concentration
• flow experience
• entity beliefs
• concentration ability
• learning effectiveness
• virtual reality

Acknowledgement

This work was financially supported by the Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.