Interactive Learning Environments

ISSN: 1049-4820 (Print) 1744-5191 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/nile20

Seeking optimal confusion: a review on epistemic

emotion management in interactive digital
learning environments

Amaël Arguel, Lori Lockyer, Gregor Kennedy, Jason M. Lodge & Mariya
Pachman

To cite this article: Amaël Arguel, Lori Lockyer, Gregor Kennedy, Jason M. Lodge & Mariya
Pachman (2018): Seeking optimal confusion: a review on epistemic emotion management
in interactive digital learning environments, Interactive Learning Environments, DOI:
10.1080/10494820.2018.1457544

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2018.1457544

Published online: 05 Apr 2018.

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INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2018.1457544

Seeking optimal confusion: a review on epistemic emotion

management in interactive digital learning environments
Amaël Arguel a, Lori Lockyer b
, Gregor Kennedy c
, Jason M. Lodge d
and
Mariya Pachman e
a
Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; bFaculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia; cMelbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University
of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; dSchool of Education, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia;
e
Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Emotions play a significant part in students’ learning experiences within Received 26 October 2017
complex educational environments. However, the impact of emotional Accepted 22 March 2018
experiences on effective learning is not straightforward. For example,
KEYWORDS
being confused during learning may be perceived as an adverse event. Emotional response;
There is, however, considerable research evidence suggesting that confusion; feedback; learning
confusion can also be a productive aspect of a student’s learning processes; instructional
processes. Despite this, research also suggests that when confusion is design; self-regulation
persistent it can become harmful, promoting learner frustration or
boredom. Key challenges for the design of interactive digital learning
environments (IDLEs) are to detect and assess students’ emotions and to
tailor the environment accordingly. In this paper we examine, from a
review of the literature, the implications of learners’ confusion that can
occur in IDLEs. Strategies for managing students’ confusion will then be
discussed and examples of features enhancing learning in IDLEs will be
suggested.

Introduction
The use of technologies in higher education has become omnipresent. Around the world, most uni-
versities provide students with interactive digital learning environments (IDLEs) to complement (or
even replace) face-to-face teaching. In the main, universities use third-party learning management
systems (LMS) to deliver IDLEs to their students. Thus, implementation of these IDLEs is partly
driven by the technical affordances and constraints of the LMS. For any particular course, university
teachers and learning designers have opportunities to influence students’ experiences within the
IDLE. They may decide the type and combination of learning resources, activities and assessments
available and the possible pathways for a learner to interact with those elements. An important
element often overlooked in the design of a course or an activity within an IDLE is the psychological
factors that impact student learning (Clark & Mayer, 2016). The quality of a learning experience is
greatly influenced by how students cognitively and emotionally encounter the information and
activities delivered in IDLEs.
A considerable body of research has focussed on understanding how to design effective IDLEs and
different models have emerged (for a review see Mayer, 2014a). Many of these models consider the
cognitive aspects of learning, particularly focusing on a learner’s limitations of information

CONTACT Amaël Arguel amael.arguel@mq.edu.au Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University, 29 Wally’s
Walk, room 270, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 A. ARGUEL ET AL.

processing in working memory (Baddeley, 1992; Mayer, 2009; Schnotz, 2005; Sweller, 1999). Interest
has also been directed towards motivational aspects of learning with technology seen as a way to
foster generative processing; that is when students need to process new information to elaborate
mental models (Leutner, 2014; Mayer, 2014b; Moreno, 2006; Moreno & Mayer, 2007). However,
only a limited number of studies have focussed on the impact of emotions that can occur during
learning.
This article aims to address the question of what role emotions may play in learning. We particu-
larly focus on the impact of confusion, frustration, and boredom on learning and the implications for
the design of IDLEs. To respond to this question, a review of the literature was conducted from rel-
evant articles identified in electronic databases such as PsycINFO and Google Scholar. Eligibility cri-
teria were the selection of English-written, peer-reviewed publications released within the past 30
years, and focusing on the occurrence of emotions during learning and within IDLEs. Articles addres-
sing learning situations other than IDLEs, or focussing on personality traits, moods, or generic feelings
such as mathematical anxiety were excluded from the review. From this review of the literature, we
examined the reasons why some emotions such as confusion could be beneficial or harmful to learn-
ing. We use this understanding to consider the design of courses within IDLEs, in particular to effec-
tively manage students’ confusion.
Research has been undertaken on dynamic models of the transitions of the emotions that can
occur during learning in digital environments (Baker, D’Mello, Rodrigo, & Graesser, 2010; D’Mello
& Graesser, 2012, 2014; Kort, Reilly, & Picard, 2001). The role of emotions in learning has emerged
as an important line of inquiry in educational research and emotions are being examined extensively
in various learning settings (Leutner, 2014; Moreno, 2006; Yadav et al., 2011). This work is assisting
researchers develop a better understanding of the emotional experience of students during a learn-
ing sequence.
Not all emotions are equally relevant to learning and it is worth considering particularly the
emotions that have significant impact on the processing of information in IDLEs. For example,
emotions that are not directly linked to processing information, such as fear, anger, sadness, or
disgust may be not particularly pertinent in learning situations (Lehman, D’Mello, & Graesser,
2012). Among the relevant emotions, confusion is particularly interesting because of its potential
to help learners engage more deeply with the learning material (D’Mello, Lehman, Pekrun, & Graes-
ser, 2014). However, under certain conditions, confusion can also lead to the learner producing nega-
tive results (D’Mello & Graesser, 2014). It is the differentiation between the contrasted outcomes of
confusion that we seek to address in this article, with a particular focus on the management of stu-
dents’ emotions while learning from IDLEs.

Confusion as an epistemic emotion

Confusion can be defined as an epistemic emotion; that is, an emotion that occurs in relation to knowl-
edge (D’Mello & Graesser, 2012; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). An epistemic emotion is a specific type of
emotion that can occur in response to cognitive information processing in learning situations
(Pekrun, 2006). Consequently, the difficulty of a learning task, the content to be learned, and the
nature of the feedback received during learning may all have an impact on the emotional experience
of confusion (Graesser & D’Mello, 2012). Moreover, learning complex conceptual material involves
simultaneously processing new information, retrieving prior knowledge from memory, and integrat-
ing these two types of information into an updated and operational mental model (Mayer, 2009).
Since multiple steps are involved in this process, confusion is likely to arise if some of these steps
cannot be adequately completed (Lodge, Kennedy, Lockyer, Arguel, & Pachman, in press). In such
cases, confusion is generally linked to the presence of cognitive disequilibrium, which can be
caused by impasses, complexity, contradictions, dissonance, or incongruity in or when negotiating
the learning material.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 3

Cognitive disequilibrium can be understood as a break in the continuous flow of a learning

sequence (D’Mello & Graesser, 2014; Graesser, Lu, Olde, Cooper-Pye, & Whitten, 2005) that occurs
when learners are confronted with inconsistent information (Sullins & Graesser, 2014). For instance,
if prior knowledge and new elements of information contradict each other, it may cause cognitive
disequilibrium (Graesser et al., 2005). Learners can report this experience as incongruence, an uncer-
tainty, an anomaly, or a novelty. Disequilibrium and confusion are hence two tightly interconnected
phenomena and confusion is commonly considered as the affective expression of cognitive disequi-
librium (Craig, Graesser, Sullins, & Gholson, 2004; D’Mello & Graesser, 2014; Lehman et al., 2012;
Sullins & Graesser, 2014). Experiencing cognitive disequilibrium is also likely to occur while learning
complex content from IDLEs. In this case, students are likely to experience it as an emotional state
called confusion and it can play an important role in learning performance.

The impacts of confusion on learning outcomes

The learning benefit of being confused
Because confusion is intrinsically linked to cognition, its manifestation is likely to happen while stu-
dents are undertaking complex learning tasks. For example, when students are confronted with pro-
blems causing cognitive disequilibrium, the continuous flow of the assimilation of new information
may be disturbed because the learner needs to overcome the disequilibrium before moving on
(D’Mello et al., 2014). This interruption in information processing has an impact on both cognitive
and emotional states, which may be manifested in a change of mood and also physiological
responses such as variations in body posture, heart rate, and respiration (D’Mello et al., 2014; Macdo-
well & Mandler, 1989; Mandler, 1984). These cognitive and physiological changes can be useful when
the emotional arousal produced contribute to the resolution of the original discrepancy, leading to
improved learning. That is, the emotion produced within an individual by cognitive disequilibrium
can drive greater engagement in the task, which can lead to a deeper understanding of the
content. In this way, confusion could be regarded as the precursor to a positive and constructive
learning event and may be a legitimate and desired step in the acquisition of deep understanding
(Craig et al., 2004; D’Mello et al., 2014).
Confusion can be a powerful tool to engage learners in deep learning processes, but only under
some conditions. Indeed, it seems that it is not confusion itself which is beneficial for learning but it is
the manner in which it is generated, within specific learning tasks, and how it is managed by students
under certain conditions (Lehman et al., 2012; Lodge et al., in press). Firstly, confusion must be effi-
ciently resolved by learners as unresolved confusion is likely to produce poor learning outcomes
(D’Mello & Graesser, 2014). Secondly, the learning environment must provide appropriate features
to support learners in managing their confusion, such as providing timely feedback. Finally, the cog-
nitive disequilibrium that causes confusion should be relevant to the context of the learning task in
order to encourage students to engage in an effortful problem solving process (D’Mello et al., 2014). It
should be noted, however, that individual differences have a significant impact on how confusion
may be encountered by students.

The trouble caused by confusion

The notion that confusion has a negative impact on learning has intuitive validity. However, a more
nuanced way of thinking about the possible negative consequences of confusion is to consider the
continuum of emotions that learners can experience during the learning process. Recently, a model
of the dynamics of emotions surrounding confusion has been proposed on the basis of empirical
research (D’Mello & Graesser, 2012, 2014). This model depicts the articulation of learners’ confusion
from the detection of cognitive disequilibrium in the flow of learning with an intelligent embodied
agent. According to the model, once the learner gets confused, two outcomes are possible: either
4 A. ARGUEL ET AL.

they succeed in resolving the impasse within a reasonable amount of time, or confusion remains
because the disequilibrium cannot be efficiently resolved. In the latter case, the learning experience
may be detrimental, leading to negative emotions such as frustration and boredom (Baker et al., 2010;
D’Mello & Graesser, 2012, 2014; D’Mello et al., 2014), which in turn may contribute to learners giving
up on their learning session. Although this model of the dynamics of emotions can seem quite sim-
plistic, it has the advantage of putting in a central place the dual outcome of confusion, which can be
negative or positive, hence emphasising the uniqueness of this epistemic emotion.

Frustration
Frustration is an emotion that is relatively common while learning complex content. Students fre-
quently experience this emotion as disappointment, annoyance, irritation, or a feeling of failure
(Finch, Peacock, Lazdowski, & Hwang, 2015). Generally, experiencing frustration also refers to a
strong, unpleasant emotion that also involves a high level of activation (e.g. arousal) (Russell,
2003). As a negative emotion, frustration can result in disengagement and as such detract from learn-
ing (Finch et al., 2015). According to the model of affect dynamics mentioned above, frustration is
likely to be the first emotion to occur if confusion is not quickly resolved. However, as with confusion,
learners are also likely to engage in an active process to reduce this unpleasant emotion (D’Mello &
Graesser, 2012; D’Mello et al., 2014). Given this, under certain circumstances, frustration can be ben-
eficial for learning and positive correlations between frustration and learning performance have been
observed (Baker et al., 2010; Pardos, Baker, San Pedro, Gowda, & Gowda, 2013). As such, frustration
can be considered as a natural emotion occurring during complex learning, which is not always cri-
tically detrimental to the learning process, but if frustration is persistent and repeated, it may never-
theless produce an overall negative learning outcome.

Boredom
Boredom is another emotion that is frequently experienced during learning. It can be character-
ised by a disengagement following a period in which the learner is stuck and feels frustrated
(D’Mello & Graesser, 2012). Unlike frustration, boredom is a particularly persistent emotion that
can lead learners to be disengaged for long periods of time (Baker et al., 2010). Indeed, once lear-
ners experience boredom, it is extremely difficult to engage them again in a learning activity. As a
result, this emotional state is especially harmful for learning and can even last beyond the learning
session, potentially contributing to anxiety and hopelessness (Pekrun, 2006). The main goal of
learning interventions and the features in IDLEs specifically developed to address emotional
states is to prevent learners getting close to this emotion (Arguel, Lockyer, Lipp, Lodge, &
Kennedy, 2017; D’Mello et al., 2014). Also, some IDLEs, for example those that adopt game-
based learning, are specifically designed to increase motivation and prevent boredom, although
it does not guarantee results on learners’ emotions and learning performance (Mayer, 2014a).
Instead of seeking remediation once boredom occurs in a learning sequence, it might be more
efficient to be particularly aware of the dynamics of confusion in order to reduce the likelihood
of experiencing boredom at all.

A zone of optimal confusion

Since negative emotions, such as frustration and boredom, generally occur after confusion fails
to be resolved, students may perceive the overall learning episode as a negative experience.
Thus, it is important to understand the dynamics of emotions and the emotional changes
that can occur during a learning sequence in order to remedy adverse outcomes. In IDLEs,
keeping university students within a zone of optimal confusion is a strategy that educators
and educational designers can focus on to foster learning of complex material. Each student
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 5

possesses their own zone of optimal confusion, which is related to their prior knowledge and
their initial level of motivation to learn a particular topic (Graesser, 2011). Students have individ-
ual thresholds delimitating the zone: Ta is the point at which they move from cognitive equili-
brium (i.e. understanding the learning material) to confusion, and Tb, which is the upper
boundary located between confusion and frustration (D’Mello et al., 2014). The zone of
optimal confusion is illustrated in Figure 1.
A problematic situation occurs once students go beyond the zone (i.e. inability to resolve the con-
fusion and exceeding Tb) and they become frustrated. In this case, an intervention delivered by the
IDLE which aims to help students manage the level of confusion would be relevant (Lehman et al.,
2012). Conversely, inducing enough confusion to reach Ta may be a useful technique to engage stu-
dents in a difficult learning activity, placing them briefly within their own zone of optimal confusion.
Hence, provoking a meaningful cognitive conflict by demonstrating some contradictions caused by
the learner’s naïve conceptions is one of the levers which may be employed by educators to induce
confusion (Limón, 2001). For example, courses could be specifically designed to promote engage-
ment in a learning task by progressively inducing confusion from the beginning of each sequence
(Arguel & Lane, 2015). This can be achieved by preparing activities that intentionally highlight incon-
sistencies between elements of new information and students’ prior knowledge, consequently pro-
voking cognitive disequilibrium. However, as the level of prior knowledge and reaction to confusion
can vary among students, further research is necessary to design features capable of inducing con-
fusion efficiently.
It is also important to consider that learning activities that are likely to create beneficial con-
fusion can also produce an unresolved confusion situation that could be detrimental for learning
if leading to frustration and boredom. For this reason, courses delivered within IDLEs must be
designed to offer specific strategies that aim to prevent confusion from going unresolved. For
example, if learners’ confusion fails to be resolved quickly, the IDLE course could be designed to
trigger planned adaptive responses such as hints, feedback, or indications that can redirect stu-
dents to resolve confusion.
In conclusion, the way in which learning environments are designed is crucial when fostering stu-
dents to develop a deep understanding of difficult content. Individually drawing students into their
own zone of optimal confusion seems to be a powerful educational strategy, which requires the
deployment of two different sets of features. On one hand, IDLEs can be designed to provide features
that initiate cognitive disequilibrium, and hence a sufficient level of confusion in order to engage lear-
ners (i.e. to reach Ta). On the other hand, IDLEs also need to have the capacity to deal with situations
where confusion is persistent and learners get stuck (i.e. to maintain confusion below Tb).

Figure 1. A representation of the Zone of Optimal Confusion and the possible external interventions (Arguel & Lane, 2015),
reprinted with permission.
6 A. ARGUEL ET AL.

Supporting learners to take advantage of confusion

Resolving cognitive disequilibrium and reducing persistent confusion is important for student
success in complex learning activities. Therefore, courses within IDLEs can be designed to accommo-
date the dynamic of the emotional shifts that students can potentially go through and be designed to
respond accordingly. Principles can be gleaned from the empirical research on confusion that
provide guidance on how best to design learning environments to be responsive to confusion
(D’Mello & Graesser, 2015). The next two sections outline options for helping students with self-regu-
lation strategies and providing them with feedback, which are two ways to assist them effectively
resolve confusion.

Promoting self-regulation strategies

Based on their prior experiences, students often develop strategies for self-regulation to deal with
possible situations of confusion. These experiences can be intuitions and beliefs related to particular
learning content (Bjork, Dunlosky, & Kornell, 2013; Wolters, Shirley, & Pintrich, 1996). For instance, self-
efficacy, that can be defined as the student’s belief of their capacity to organise and execute a series
of actions to reach an expected result (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997), has strong links with the deploy-
ment of self-regulation strategies (Zimmerman, 2000). Consequently, providing students with fea-
tures in the environment that help them modulate their self-efficacy, might have a significant
impact on their capacities to deal with confusion during learning.
Promoting self-regulation in IDLEs can be obtained using a variety of techniques. For example, fea-
tures designed to help students set their learning sub-goals, to activate some prior knowledge, to
engage in thorough planning, and to capture subsequent monitoring of the learning progress can
be employed to fulfil this purpose (Bol & Garner, 2011). To illustrate, Azevedo, Guthrie, and Seibert
(2004) found that undergraduate students who managed to achieve a significant change in their con-
ceptual understanding of a complex science topic were likely to more carefully monitor their emer-
ging understanding by using self-questioning, content evaluation, and identifying the adequacy of
information. In contrast, low performing students relied mostly on seeking help and spent less
time using reflective strategies, such as scaffolding, to improve their capability to deal with challen-
ging problems that cause confusion.
Research has also found that the presence of self-monitoring activities, such as self-questioning
and meta-memory judgment tasks, were more important for learning gains than planning or activi-
ties related to managing task difficulty, such as help-seeking (Greene & Azevedo, 2009). Conse-
quently, including in IDLEs features that promote self-questioning should be an efficient way to
improve students’ self-regulation and their chances of overcoming confusion.
Another effective strategy to resolve confusion relies on student’s capacity for knowing how to
progress when they become confused. Learning how to learn and how to overcome such difficulties
in learning is an important skill for students. It is possible to design specific features in IDLEs to
address specifically students’ self-efficacy. Preparing students to deal with confusion at the begin-
ning of a learning sequence, giving indirect hints and encouragement, or fostering situational interest
in order to increase perseverance are examples of interventions that can have an impact on the way
students will face confusion when it occurs in learning sequences (Lehman et al., 2012). This kind of
intervention could, for example, involve providing instructions that explicitly explain to students the
benefits of being confused, even though it may feel uncomfortable. This type of intervention can be
also specifically designed to help learners focus more on resolving their cognitive disequilibrium, pro-
moting a longer engagement in this activity. The aim of these features is generally to lead students to
show a greater resilience in the face of confusion and also frustration.
A final way to influence students’ self-efficacy and self-regulation could be through providing
feedback during the learning activity. In a web-based learning environment it has been shown
that students in education who received elaborated feedback had significantly higher levels of
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 7

self-efficacy when analysing issues in case study (Wang & Wu, 2008). Similarly, feedback received
during learning may also have an effect on learners’ self-regulated learning competence (van den
Boom, Paas, & van Merriënboer, 2007; van den Boom, Paas, van Merriënboer, & van Gog, 2004).
But beyond its effect on self-regulation, the use of feedback appears to also be an efficient technique
for direct managing students’ levels of confusion during learning.

Providing feedback
In learning situations, feedback is a new piece of information provided to a student as the result of an
action, such as a response to a quiz. The nature of feedback is broad and can have different functions
(Butler & Winne, 1995; Narciss, 2004). Feedback provided in IDLEs can be classified as: corrective feed-
back, didactic explanations, and suggestive feedback (Chi, 1996). For educational developers the choice
of the types of feedback to integrate in IDLEs is crucial because it can affect the performance of stu-
dents in achieving a given learning task and also, as mentioned previously, influence their self-regu-
lated strategies during learning (van den Boom et al., 2007).
The effect of feedback on learning is not always positive and can even be detrimental. For
example, in time-constrained learning situations, feedback can produce negative results if it requires
some time to be processed and diverts students from the primary task (Hays, Kornell, & Bjork, 2010).
In other cases, learners may not expect any feedback, hence it can create incomprehension, which, in
turn, could contribute to increasing the experienced confusion (D’Mello & Graesser, 2012). Even when
learners expect receiving feedback, a wrong type of feedback (e.g. corrective yes/no type) can com-
plicate timely resolution of confusion rather than contribute to it (Pachman, Arguel, Lockyer,
Kennedy, & Lodge, 2016). Sometimes feedback can provide guidance by reducing the number of
alternative solutions to a problem (Narciss, 2004) but in other situations, it may inversely make a
problem seem more complex and difficult. For these reasons, the design and delivery of feedback
needs to be carefully considered.
One key for designing effective feedback features is considering the individual needs of students
at specific moments of a learning sequence. This is a critical affordance of advanced adaptive learning
environments. For example, in a study on the learning of a programming language with an intelligent
computer tutor, Corbett and Anderson (2001) have found that immediate, computer-initiated feed-
back could lead to more efficient learning than delayed or on-demand feedback. The source of feed-
back also matters and computer-based feedback has also been observed to be better received than
human (tutor or teacher) feedback since potential social biases are not present (see Kluger & DeNisi,
1996). Such feedback is adaptive, in that it provides tailored, individual, and timely information to
students. In this manner, the provision of adaptive feedback in the context of confusion manage-
ment, can be a lever employed in IDLEs to prevent students getting stuck in confusion, getting fru-
strated, or even becoming bored and giving up (Baker et al., 2010; D’Mello & Graesser, 2012; D’Mello
et al., 2014). Immediate and adaptive feedback can therefore be one of the techniques educators and
designers can employ when developing IDLE features for helping learners to successfully navigate
their own zone of optimal confusion.

Conclusion
Confusion is a critical stage of students’ emotional trajectories during learning and can provide learn-
ing opportunities under certain conditions. These conditions are the following: (I) confusion must be
sufficient to engage learners in its active resolution, (II) learners need to have sufficient prior knowl-
edge and/or abilities to resolve confusion, and (III) the confusion must be resolved by the learners
themselves (D’Mello & Graesser, 2014). However, IDLEs can be designed to help learners resolve con-
fusion. Learning interventions involving confusion management (i.e. the provision of feedback and
the promotion of self-regulation strategies) are good candidates for promoting deeper understand-
ing of complex concepts and IDLE features could be designed for this purpose.
8 A. ARGUEL ET AL.

In this article, we have reported a review of literature on the impact and the management of some
epistemic emotions in IDLEs. While the studies included in the review appeared in a variety of peer-
reviewed journals and conference proceedings, this review was able to identify an outline of the fun-
damental characteristics of confusion that can assist educators, designers, and researchers to create
IDLE conditions where students remain close to their zone of optimal confusion. At the low end of the
zone, provoking cognitive disequilibrium, and subsequent confusion, is an efficient way to make lear-
ners genuinely engaged in their learning tasks (D’Mello et al., 2014). However, at the upper end of the
zone, if students are getting too confused – or stay confused for a long period of time – the effects
can be just the opposite: confusion can lead to frustration and possibly boredom. Therefore, educa-
tors and designers must be aware of the risks associated with presenting students with challenging
situations that generate cognitive disequilibrium.
When designing IDLEs, a key factor for designing interventions to reduce students’ confusion is
the capacity to detect when and to what extent learners are experiencing confusion. Interventions
designed to reduce confusion could be achieved with IDLE features that provide feedback to stu-
dents or promote students’ use of self-regulated strategies. It is, however, critical to provide students
with tailored support that would prevent them from transitioning from confusion to frustration or
boredom. Individual differences are likely to have a considerable impact on students’ ability to
deal with confusion. Ideally, IDLEs should be capable to detect when learners are stuck or they
meet an impasse in a learning sequence, or when they are experiencing a persistent state of con-
fusion (Arguel et al., 2017). For example, a teaching system could detect the development of a coun-
terproductive level of confusion from clues in learners’ actions in a learning module. Then, the system
would be able to trigger a scaffolded intervention, for example by: using adaptive feedback, encoura-
ging the initiation of strategies of self-regulation, suggesting peer support, or suggesting the student
ask a virtual teacher for help.
This review and the approaches described have practical applications in the design of IDLEs. While
design of IDLEs has often developed only on the basis of principles of multimedia learning (Mayer,
2014a), we suggest this design should also include the emotional aspects relevant to learning. The
implication of integrating of emotions such as confusion into design of IDLEs is that there must be
some capability of detecting these emotions remotely from the cues captured in learning environ-
ments. One of the most promising candidates for this purpose is making use of data and learning
analytics technics and, more precisely, the interactions produced between students and the compu-
ter interface (Arguel, Pachman, & Lockyer, in press). Indeed, the foundations of these analytics
systems already exist and they could be harnessed to both determine markers of different levels
of confusion and to trigger autonomous responses (e.g. instructional feedback) to the learner.
However, further research is necessary to be able to determine how meaningful patterns of students’
interactions are able to be used to model epistemic emotions in IDLEs.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This research was funded by the Science of Learning Research Centre, a Special Research Initiative of the Australian
Research Council (SRI20300015).

Notes on contributors
Dr Amaël Arguel is a psychological scientist specialised in learning from digital technologies and the Internet. Based in
Sydney, at Macquarie University, he is a research fellow of the Science of Learning Research Centre, where he is involved
in a research stream on understanding learners’ confusion in digital environments.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 9

Professor Lori Lockyer is Dean of the Graduate Research School at the University of Technology Sydney and Honorary
Professor at Macquarie University. Her research focuses on teaching and learning with technology in school, university
and professional learning environments.
Professor Gregor Kennedy is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) at the University of Melbourne and Director
of the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education. His research interests include learning analytics, and stu-
dents’ motivation, confusion, and self-regulation in digital learning environments.
Prof Jason M. Lodge is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education, University of Queens-
land, Australia. His research focuses on the cognitive and emotional factors underpinning student learning and the
student experience in formal, informal and digital learning environments.
Dr Mariya Pachman is an educational researcher specialised in learning and new technologies. Her background is in
instructional design, multimedia learning and Cognitive Load Theory. Mariya is currently based at FSU where she is
exploring the affordances of a Mixed-Reality-Integrated Learning Environment (MILE) in enhancing teaching competen-
cies in STEM disciplines.

ORCID
Amaël Arguel http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0449-7934
Lori Lockyer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1517-2342
Gregor Kennedy http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9423-7786
Jason M. Lodge http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6330-6160
Mariya Pachman http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9140-5502

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