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Why Did you Stop? - Investigating Origins and Effects of Interruptions during Mobile Language Learning

Published: 13 September 2021 Publication History

Abstract

The technological advances of smartphones facilitate the transformation of learning from the classroom to an activity that can happen anywhere and anytime. While micro-learning fosters ubiquitous learning, this flexibility comes at the cost of having an uncontrolled learning environment. To this point, we know little about the usage of mobile learning applications, particularly the occurrence of interruptions and the harm they cause. By diverting users’ attention away from the learning task, interruptions can potentially compromise learning performance. We present a four-week in-the-wild study (N = 12) where we investigate learning behavior and the occurrence of interruptions based on device logging and experience sampling questionnaires. We recorded 276 interruptions in 327 learning sessions and found that interruption type as well as users’ context influence learning sessions and the severity of the interruption (i.e., session termination likeliness). We discuss challenges and opportunities for the design of automated mechanisms to detect and mitigate interruptions in mobile learning.

Supplementary Material

Details on GAMLSS reported in Results (3473856.3473881.pdf)

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Implicit Smartphone Use Interventions to Promote Life-Technology Balance: An App-Market Survey, Design Space and the Case of Life-RelaunchedProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202310.1145/3603555.3603578(237-249)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2023
  • (2022)Reflective Spring Cleaning: Using Personal Informatics to Support Infrequent Notification PersonalizationProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517493(1-16)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
  • (2021)Investigating the Use of Task Resumption Cues to Support Learning in Interruption-Prone EnvironmentsMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti60100026:1(2)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2021

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cover image ACM Other conferences
MuC '21: Proceedings of Mensch und Computer 2021
September 2021
613 pages
ISBN:9781450386456
DOI:10.1145/3473856
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 13 September 2021

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Author Tags

  1. Empirical Study
  2. Experience Sampling Method
  3. Interruptions
  4. Mobile Learning
  5. Task Resumption Support

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MuC '21
MuC '21: Mensch und Computer 2021
September 5 - 8, 2021
Ingolstadt, Germany

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View all
  • (2023)Implicit Smartphone Use Interventions to Promote Life-Technology Balance: An App-Market Survey, Design Space and the Case of Life-RelaunchedProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202310.1145/3603555.3603578(237-249)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2023
  • (2022)Reflective Spring Cleaning: Using Personal Informatics to Support Infrequent Notification PersonalizationProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517493(1-16)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
  • (2021)Investigating the Use of Task Resumption Cues to Support Learning in Interruption-Prone EnvironmentsMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti60100026:1(2)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2021

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