Abstract:

This paper describes research conducted part of the EU Horizon 2020-funded project NEWTON. The project focuses on devising diverse new technologies which improve students’ quality of learning when used in their technology-enhanced education. The NEWTON multi-sensory media (Mulsemedia) delivery solution enables students to access learning materials while adjusting the transmission of content according to user operational environment. A pilot was run in Slovak Technical University in Bratislava involving 48 undergraduate students with the aim of investigating how mulsemedia can affect their learning satisfaction.

Current interactive rich media technologies have narrowed significantly the distances between people, reformed the way people communicate, and provided a more immersive environment people experience. In multimedia applications, research and technology developments usually target two human senses only and focus on improving the image and/or sound quality. This limitation stimulates the disconnection between the user and the represented scene, undermining the enhancement of the interaction in digital media through combinations of audio-visual content with one or several different types of other stimuli (e.g., haptic and/or olfactory). NEWTON mulsemedia delivery solution is used in the class to enhance user experience with multi-sensorial media (mulsemedia) elements, engaging three or more human senses and allows for adjustment of the content delivery in a heterogeneous network context.

Various questionnaires have been used to collect students’ data, including demographics, use of Internet access technologies and frequency of watching movies. In total, 48 university students participated in the investigation. These students were undergraduate engineering students who completed the activity as part of a research methodology module. The learner satisfaction using the pilot was investigated and evaluated by 7 questions in the Learner satisfaction questionnaire. The overall learner satisfaction of the participants was excellent. 56.25% thought that the multi-sensorial experience helped them to assimilate better the concepts. 62.50% enjoyed the multi-sensorial experience during the class. 54.14% would like to have more activities that include multi-sensorial experience. One limitation of this study is that it was conducted on a relatively small group of population, although this is natural for such pilot studies. Nonetheless, the results reflect that there is room for incorporating mulsemedia in education with great results in the future.

Keywords:

Learning satisfaction, personalization, multi-sensory media.