Where the attention is: Discovery learning in novel tangible environments Sara Price ⇑ , Taciana Pontual Falcão London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, 23-29 Emerald Street, London WC1N 3QS, UK 1 article info Article history: Received 10 January 2011 Received in revised form 17 June 2011 Accepted 20 June 2011 Available online 29 June 2011 Keywords: Interactive learning environments Tangible technologies Engagement Discovery learning Interaction abstract Engagement is a frequently reported measure in evaluation studies of technology mediated learning environments. In the context of novel digital technologies, where the ‘novelty’ factor is inherent in inter- action with emergent technologies, the concept of engagement is often reported at a general level of description of fun and enjoyment. Although this importantly indicates positive appraisal of the environ- ment it does not provide any detail about how the participants are ‘engaged’. For example, what are they doing and thinking about, where is their attention focused – is it on a learning task, a tangential enter- taining activity or even the technology itself? This paper offers a more detailed analysis of students’ foci of interaction, to provide insight into the different ways that children are both cognitively and physically engaged during a discovery-based learning experience. Three key foci of interaction within the learning space (learning concept, tangential activity, technology) were derived from video data analysis. A coding scheme for identifying these interaction foci was developed and applied to empirical data with a tangible learning environment. In depth analysis showed close relationships between the different foci of interac- tion and the learning process: engaging with a tangential activity in a exploratory interaction engendered cognitive engagement with domain related concepts; while engaging with technology to understand the basics of the system’s functioning could facilitate higher levels of conceptual abstraction. This article highlights the different interaction foci that students take in innovative, technology-enhanced learning environments, and provides an analytical approach, which informs and extends current evaluation approaches towards student engagement in novel digital environments. Ó 2011 British Informatics Society Limited. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Research in technology enhanced learning environments, and in particular those employing novel technologies, typically highlights concepts of enjoyment and fun as key outcomes from analysis. This is valuable in identifying how new technology-mediated environ- ments can be designed to motivate learning, as learners’ motiva- tion has been shown to increase when they enjoy what they are doing. However, there is a critical need to move beyond ‘engage- ment as fun’, to understand what students are having fun doing; where their attention is being focused, and the implications for learning activity and evaluation. Enjoyment or motivation alone do not guarantee learning (Moyer, 2001): children can have ‘fun’ without engaging with the concepts that they are expected to learn; they can be challenged, curious, cooperate or compete in sit- uations which do not necessarily lead to domain related learning. Given the novelty of emergent technology-mediated environ- ments, a manifestation of excitement in engaging with something new and different is not surprising. Novelty factors themselves can draw attention to the technology and detract children from engag- ing with the learning task (Hsi, 2002). This is of particular concern in the context of novel digital environments, which promote exploratory-based discovery learning activity, where learners take more independent control of their activity, and the risks of being ‘off task’ are higher. Detailed analysis of how children are engaging in novel digital exploratory learning environments is lacking: where is their focus of attention, to what degree do ‘novelty’ fac- tors detract from engaging with learning process, and what are the implications for pedagogical use of novel technologies? Enjoyment and fun are typically sought by designers of educa- tional technology (Read et al., 2002), and are commonly the focus of novel technology mediated environment evaluation (e.g. Africano et al., 2004; Read et al., 2002; Hanna et al., 2004; Xie et al., 2008). While measures of fun and enjoyment give some indi- cation of how much children might be enjoying their experience, they provide little detail about what students are doing and think- ing about while interacting in novel learning environments, and the implications of this in terms of the learning activity. Alternative approaches focus on cognitive descriptions of engagement, which are often directly linked to ‘learning activity’ or ‘learning task’ (e.g. Corno and Mandinach, 1983; Kearsley and Schneiderman, 0953-5438/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 British Informatics Society Limited. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2011.06.003 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0)2077632175; fax: +44 (0)2077632138. E-mail addresses: s.price@ioe.ac.uk (S. Price), tacianapontual@gmail.com (T. Pontual Falcão). 1 http://www.lkl.ac.uk. Interacting with Computers 23 (2011) 499–512 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Interacting with Computers journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom