Flow and Learning Emotions in Computer Education: An Empirical Survey

It is important to keep learners' feeling positive during learning to enhance learning performance. According to flow theory,challenge-skill balance is a precondition for flow experience: Learners feel anxiety when the challenge of learning is higher than their ability, feel boredom when the challenge of learning is lower than learners' ability, and engage in flow status when the challenge of learning matches the learners' ability. However, the current empirical study reveals that emotions related to enjoyment may appear when the learners' skill is equal to or higher than the learning challenge. Nevertheless, boredom emotion may appear when learners perceive the courses are difficult but unimportant. These empirical survey results revealed the necessary of rethinking the appearance of boredom and enjoyment emotions in computer education.