Abstract
The poster summaries three studies on the topic of surface qualities in educational video games and their effects on motivation and learning outcomes (key variables in all three studies) in the case of Czech primary school children (3rd and 4th grade). The study A focuses on the effects of visual appearance of the learning materials, namely the level of visual unity, visual complexity and overall perceived visual attractivity of the educational video games.
The study B concerns with the instructionally irrelevant animated elements in these games and how they influence the attention distribution during the learning process and affect the key variables. The study C investigates the effect of the customization features of educational video games' visuals.
The results of all three studies reveal similar pattern, which shows that manipulated surface qualities (i.e. visual attractivity, instructionally irrelevant animated elements, customization of visual appearance) may fosters children's motivation, but they do not affect the learning outcomes. These results are discussed in the context of Emotional Design (Um et al., 2012) and Cognitive-Affective Theory of Learning with Media (Moreno, 2005).
It has potential practical implications for production of educational video games.