The Effects of 3d Characters’ Facial Expressions on Student Motivation to Learn Japanese in a Game-based Environment

Dixuan Cui, Purdue University

Abstract

Previous research has shown that student-teacher interaction is very important in motivating students to learn a second language. However, it is unclear whether facial expression, which is one of the most important components of interaction, affects in-game language learning motivation or not. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the game characters’ facial expressions would influence the learning motivation of Japanese L2 (second language) students. The researchers of this study developed four versions of a 3D animated Japanese role-playing game. Each version of the game includes characters displaying one of four different facial expression, namely neutral, happy, sad or angry. Two experiments were conducted: a validation study and a motivation study. Before the motivation study, a validation study was conducted to ask participants how realistic each facial expression was. Questionnaires using recognition, intensity, typicality and sincerity as the dependent variables were sent to participants outside of Japanese departments of Purdue and other universities. After validating all the facial expressions of five main characters in the game, 84 college students from 200/300 level Japanese courses joined in the motivation study voluntarily. They played a version of the game assigned randomly to them and then did a post-questionnaire. Conclusions were drawn based on the survey results. The findings of this research suggested that virtual characters’ facial expressions in game had no significant effect on participants’ learning motivation. However, for the factor years of learning Japanese, the significant effect was found on the variable time spent, realism for character appearance, immersion into games and interaction with characters. Meanwhile, it was found that the two factors, facial expression and years of learning Japanese, had an interactive effect on the variable immersion into games. Furthermore, significance was found in gender on the four variables learning motivation, realism for character appearance, immersion into games and attention on ingame characters. Overall, it was concluded that facial expressions did not affect the learning motivation of Japanese L2 student.

Degree

M.Sc.

Advisors

Adamo, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Asian Studies|Bilingual education|Education|Foreign language education|Language

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