#1: Keller, J. M. (1987). Development and use of the ARCS model of instructional design. Journal of instructional development, 10(3), 2-10. In this paper, the authors discuss the ARCS model, for which the letters represent four major conditions that must be met for people to become and remain motivated, Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. This model was developed to find more effective ways to understand what influences the motivation to learn, and identifying problems with learning motivation. With the four conceptual categories and the strategies to enhance motivational appeal, this model provides a sound method for improving the motivational appeal of learning materials. Because individual motivation is in flux, the model is not designed to change behavior or solve personality problems, it is a frame of reference for organizing strategies for teaching strategies to help student become self-motivated. In the two studies presented, the successful group had in-service training to help teachers pick appropriate goals when designing learning materials. Those without prior had more difficulty, mainly due to choose to many problems outside the scope of the ARCS strategies.
#2: Fredrickson, B.L. (2001). The Role of Emotion in Positive Psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226. In this paper, the author discusses positive emotions and their influence on long-term ability to learn. The author reviews research on negative emotions, where most research exists, in contrast with positive emotions, where there is little research. The theory surrounding the positive emotions in this paper is called broaden-and-build. The theory describes the form and function of a subset of positive emotions like joy and contentment. From these, the theory posits that positive emotions broadens a person’s momentary thought-action repertoire, for instance joy sparking the urge to play. A second proposition of the theory is that there are consequences of the thought-action repertoire, whereby discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds, occurs. These type of actions can cause long-term effects such as building an individual’s personal resources, creating reserves that can be drawn upon for later survival and coping skills. The evidence in the paper supports the theory, however, because the research occurs before the broaden-and-build theory, it provides only indirect support. More research is needed directly related to the broaden-and-build model.
#3: Isen, A. M., Nowicki, G. P., & Daubman, K. A. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 52(6), 1122-1131. In this paper, the authors discuss research where positive affect influences the way individuals perform organizing tasks. In the studies, individuals were given tasks such as sorting, rating, or word association, some with the precursor positive affects ranging from watching a short comedy film to receiving snacks and juice. They discovered that this positive affect resulted in individuals categorizing more inclusively than persons in the control conditions.
#4: Um, E., Plass, J. L., Hayward, E. O., & Homer, B. D. (2012). Emotional design in multimedia learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(2), 485-498. In this paper, the authors discuss positive emotion and its relation to multimedia-based learning. Research was conducted on groups of college students where they were given external mood induction and emotional design induction. The lesson was computer-based learning material on the topic of immunization. The results showed that by applying emotional design principles to learning materials that induce positive emotions, cognitive processes and learning occurs. This was shown for both internally and externally induced emotions. Also, this was shown through higher transfer tests after the lessons. #5: Mayer, R. E. (2003). Social cues in multimedia learning: Role of speaker’s voice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(2), 419-425. This paper discusses experiements related to the role of the speaker’s voice in multimedia lessons. This introduced the idea of the voice effect, whereby students performed better on transfer tests and rated the speaker more positively, when the voice in the narration was not foreign and not a machine. Also shown was a relation to the social agency theory, which states that social cues in multimedia message can encourage learners to interpret human-computer interactions more similar to human-to-human conversation.