A Preliminary Study on Learners Physiological Measurements in Educational Hypermedia

This paper presents the findings of a preliminary study about the use of bio-feedback sensors in the context of an educational hypermedia environment, skin conductance, blood volume pulse and heart rate physiological data were gathered. The aim of the study was to examine learners’ emotional arousal variability, and possible correlations of the physiological data with other psychological constructs such as trait and self-reported anxiety. Ten university students participated in two identical experiments, with a mixed between-within experimental design (20 samples). According to the findings, heart rate was significantly correlated with trait and self-reported state anxiety (in the second experiment), but not with academic performance in an on-line exam. Skin conductance and blood volume pulse had only marginal variations, perhaps due to the absence of intense stimuli.