Understanding User Engagement in Digital Education

Engagement is a crucial goal in both interactive system design and education. Whereas engagement in digital systems are based on concepts such as immersion and user experience, engagement in education is described in three dimensions of behavioral, cognitive and emotional engagements. In this paper a research approach to understand user engagement in digital education is presented. The approach is based on a microlevel student engagement measurement that takes into account engagement in HCI and also in e-learning, facing the challenge of integrating the two points of view. The research followed an action research methodology which emphasizes investigation and improvement of a real-world situation with iterative plan-act-reflect cycles. The approach was tested in a fully online university where we designed and developed a module for capturing engagement data. The results show that user engagement can be captured in online educational settings providing a useful and actionable understanding of user engagement in digital education.