Using Positive Visual Stimuli to Lighten The Online Learning Experience through In Class Questioning

Using in-class questions is an efficient instructional strategy to keep abreast of the state of student learning in a class. Some studies have found that discussing in-class questions in synchronous learning is helpful. These studies demonstrated that synchronous questions not only provide students with timely feedback, but also allow teachers to change the pedagogy adaptively. However, some studies have also shown negative results of synchronous questions in that students may resist being questioned because of anxiety. Therefore, this paper proposes an idea of showing students funny images in order to reward them for providing correct answers. The effect of connecting questions with funny image rewards was examined by collecting data on student test scores, on facial expressions and on electroencephalogram (EEG) responses elicited using this strategy. The data on students' facial expressions indicated that being presented with funny images for correct answers consistently helps to arouse positive emotions in participants. Also, the data on the EEG responses showed that the participants receiving the rewarded questions demonstrated a trend toward increasing levels of attention and relaxation. However, the results also revealed that significant improvements in test scores were not apparent regardless of whether or not amusing visual stimuli were used. The findings imply that showing funny images as a stimulus enhances students' affective states in student-teacher interactions during online learning activities.


Article abstract
Using in-class questions is an efficient instructional strategy to keep abreast of the state of student learning in a class. Some studies have found that discussing in-class questions in synchronous learning is helpful. These studies demonstrated that synchronous questions not only provide students with timely feedback, but also allow teachers to change the pedagogy adaptively. However, some studies have also shown negative results of synchronous questions in that students may resist being questioned because of anxiety. Therefore, this paper proposes an idea of showing students funny images in order to reward them for providing correct answers. The effect of connecting questions with funny image rewards was examined by collecting data on student test scores, on facial expressions and on electroencephalogram (EEG) responses elicited using this strategy. The data on students' facial expressions indicated that being presented with funny images for correct answers consistently helps to arouse positive emotions in participants. Also, the data on the EEG responses showed that the participants receiving the rewarded questions demonstrated a trend toward increasing levels of attention and relaxation. However, the results also revealed that significant improvements in test scores were not apparent regardless of whether or not amusing visual stimuli were used. The findings imply that showing funny images as a stimulus enhances students' affective states in student-teacher interactions during online learning activities.

Introduction
Although students are familiar with watching video on demand, they lack experience in formal synchronous learning (Cole, 2009;Warden, Stanworth, Ren, & Warden, 2013). As noted by Warden et al.'s (2013) nine-year action study, creating social interactions within a virtual space that emulates a physical classroom remains challenging. In other words, we cannot expect that simply making technology available to teachers and students will automatically translate to selfdirected learning (Y.-M. Huang, Huang, & Wu, 2014;Y.-M. Huang, Huang, Liu, & Tsai, 2013;Sieber, 2005). Therefore, as the instructor does in a conventional physical classroom, synchronous online classes must also be well managed in regard to motivating students to participate (Warden et al., 2013).
In order to keep abreast of student learning in a physical classroom, using in-class questions is an efficient instructional strategy. This strategy prevents one-sided communication and gives teachers an opportunity to fulfill student needs (Y.-M. Huang, Liu, Chen, & Wen, 2014;Woolfolk, 2004). Moreover, learners exposed to in-class questions will concentrate their attention on the course unit and have a chance to immediately integrate newly learned knowledge into their existing base of knowledge (Chan, Tam, & Li, 2011). In summary, in-class questions are considered to be an effective instructional strategy to remarkably promote class interaction between teachers and students (Williamson Sprague & Dahl, 2009).
Moreover, some studies have found that discussing in-class questions in synchronous learning is beneficial. N. S. Chen, Wei, and Huang (2013) found that synchronous questions (such as quizzes, chat rooms, and oral communication) can provide timely and interactive feedback leading to both improved teaching and learning. Teachers can collect instructional information though synchronous questions that allow immediate changes in the pedagogy applied during instructional activities in order to advance real-time adaptivity to the level at which learners are understanding the material being taught at the time. Students receiving immediate feedback have opportunities for reflection and can therefore improve their performance. Also, Yang (2011) pointed out that a key element in successful learning through computer-mediated communication is to engage students in student-teacher interactions for online learning activities. Yang (2011) thus proposed a study for engaging students in online learning by developing in-class questions intended to enhance student-teacher interactions.
However, this instructional support does not always have a positive effect on students' online

Using Positive Visual Stimuli to Lighten The Online Learning Experience through In Class Questioning
Lai, Liu, Liu, and Huang learning experiences (Y. M. Huang & Chiu, 2014;Tsai, 2011;Ward, Peters, & Shelley, 2010). Yang (2011) argued that students with a low cognitive level may resist synchronous in-class questions because they need more time to think and reflect on the questions. Thus, conducting in-class questions in synchronous learning may actually decrease their performance. Moreover, personality traits such as neuroticism can also affect students' learning experience with online inclass questions (C. M. Chen & Lee, 2011). For example, highly trait-anxious students may struggle with answering questions in synchronous learning situations (Bullen, Strachan, Lindsay, Wilson, & Robson, 1998). In other words, test anxiety and pressure are particularly intense when students are specifically required to answer an in-class question (Marsh, 1984). In particular, if individuals appear to lack the confidence that they can answer the questions correctly, they may adopt an irresponsible attitude towards such questions (Putwain, Sander, & Larkin, 2013). Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (2001) attribute this phenomenon to students' ineradicable negative impression of assessments. Because teachers often deliver negative judgments based on students' test results, teachers asking in-class questions may precipitate students' fear of being punished if they answer incorrectly and consequently increase their resistance to this kind of in-class assessment.
In countries strongly influenced by Confucianism such as Taiwan, test anxiety and pressure are particularly intense when students are specifically required to answer in-class questions (J.-K. Chen & Wei, 2011; Laurence Lwo & Yuan, 2011). As noted by Jackson (2002), Chinese students are commonly anxious about being the center of attention. They may also lack the confidence needed to speak up or perhaps are afraid of losing face if they make a mistake when speaking in front of a class (Bond, 1992). A Confucian value, consideration of others, appears to be an important factor influencing Chinese students' anxiety about being subjected to in-class questions (Bond, 2010;Scollon, 1999;Teo, 2013).
Some researchers have therefore proposed the notion of replacing punishments for responding incorrectly to in-class questions with rewards for providing useful feedback (Liu et al., 2015;Murphy & Rodriguez-Manzanares, 2009 However, Deci et al. (2001) warned that providing tangible prizes as rewards for students' work sometimes may undermine their intrinsic motivation. Also, competing against classmates may evoke evaluative anxiety, especially when the academic standard in the class is high (Wehrens et al., 2010). As a result, Deci et al. (2001) suggested a need for further study to investigate the effect of different types of rewards for retaining learning motivation, such as providing students with more interesting learning activities and creating a positive atmosphere in synchronous learning.
In this work, we propose the idea of providing a virtual reward with a funny image in response to

Using Positive Visual Stimuli to Lighten The Online Learning Experience through In Class Questioning Lai, Liu, Liu, and Huang
students' answers to in-class questions. This visual type of reward aims to arouse students' feelings of pleasure during an online synchronous learning activity. According to Fredrickson and Branigan's (2005) broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions broaden the scope of attention, cognition, and action, thus widening the array of perceptions, thoughts, and actions existing in the mind at the time. Previous studies (Park & Lim, 2007;Um, Plass, Hayward, & Homer, 2012) also have shown that providing multimedia learning content (e.g., images or videos) instead of using plain text can help maintain students' positive emotions, elicit more student attention, and produce an increase in students' sense of self-efficacy. Therefore, it is predicted that this type of reward will arouse students' positive emotions so as to focus their attention on course content, create a positive atmosphere, and increase their levels of learning achievement.
Based on the above discussion, a study is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of in-class questions in synchronous learning where these questions are accompanied with positive visual stimuli that produce a positive effect. In this study, we attempt to answer the following questions: (1) Does in-class questioning using positive visual stimuli have a greater effect in regard to eliciting affective states (such as positive emotions, levels of attention and relaxation) in students as compared to being asked questions that do not have any positive visual reward?
(2) Do students being asked in-class questions using positive visual stimuli experience a greater effect on their learning outcomes, as measured by higher test scores, than ones receiving questions without positive visual stimuli?

Methodology Participants
The aim of this study was to examine the influence of funny image as positive visual stimuli. To ensure the effect of the funny image given as feedback, 42 participants ages 16-20 completed the learning activity in this study. The experimental group was made up of 21 participants given a funny image as feedback. The remaining 21 participants were the control group without the funny image as feedback. The topic of the learning activity was a general course in vocational high school, Basic Mechanical Design Course.

The construction of the in-class questions with funny images as rewards
The in-class questions with funny images as rewards were structured as multiple choice questions. The questions were presented via Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT). PPT provides interactive action buttons that allow different types of feedback based on the button that is clicked. As shown in Fig. 1, the questions and buttons displayed in the first slide were designed to determine the students' understanding of the material. The teacher selected a student to answer In summary, although a detailed examination was conducted in this study, it was proven that receiving a funny image as positive visual stimuli for the correct answer was able to help arouse the students' positive affective states including positive emotions, level of attention, and level of relaxation. A similar study by Kennedy, Senses, and Ayan (2011) also showed that the use of multimedia content (such as a video clip) in class can give students pleasure so as to help increase their interest in the subject and to increase their level of critical thinking. Lepper and Greene (1978) further pointed out that a reward is particularly useful for increasing learners' motivation during a boring course. The funny image rewards in this paper are thus predicted to trigger learners' positive emotion during online classes.
More importantly, the rewarded questions were proven to slightly increase participants' exam scores. A number of motivational theories in education have predicted that offering rewards positively affects student performance (Schunk et al., 2007). In other words, when students receive rewards, they become motivated to do well again. The results echo Nittono, Fukushima, Yano, and Moriya's (2012) study indicating that people who are induced to experience positive feelings improve in regard to both task performance and attention.

Pedagogical Implications
As noted by Y. C. Kuo, A. E. Walker, B. R. Belland, K. E. E. Schroder, and Y. T. Kuo (2014), learner-instructor interaction has been found to be the strongest predictor of student satisfaction in synchronous online learning environments. This is because using synchronous learning tools can provide the benefit of real time knowledge sharing and immediate access to the instructor for questions or comments. Therefore, the instructor plays a major role in engaging students in synchronous online learning environments. In other words, the instructor should be responsive with regard to offering live lectures and initiating questions intended to enable discussion, particularly in Chinese culture, where students rely on teachers to fire questions at them (Levinsohn, 2007). However, previous research (C. M. Chen & Lee, 2011;Coryell & Clark, 2009;Yang, 2011) has suggested that students may experience negative emotions when they are assigned to answer questions in synchronous learning environments. For example, students at low cognitive levels may resist answering such questions, because they need more time to think and reflect on the questions (Yang, 2011). Also, test anxiety and pressure are particularly intense

Using Positive Visual Stimuli to Lighten The Online Learning Experience through In Class Questioning Lai, Liu, Liu, and Huang
when students are specifically required to answer in-class questions (Marsh, 1984), Therefore, in order to engage students in synchronous online learning environments, the instructor should not only emphasize increasing performance, but also should take the approach of attracting positive affective states such as those experienced when employing funny images as pleasure rewards, as is proposed in the current study. One of the features that distinguishes visual rewards from other rewards is they not only entice students to increase performance, but also positively affect learners' affective states (e.g., sense of confidence) (Nittono et al., 2012). The other feature of a funny image reward is that it is given to groups rather than individuals. Sears and Pai (2012) demonstrated that this feature promotes a greater degree of knowledge sharing and group cohesiveness. In summary, this paper emphasizes the idea that the instructional design doesn't necessarily lead to high performance all the time. Nevertheless, instructional designers should consider students' emotions and levels of motivation when seeking to improve the probability of academic success by providing students with incremental joyful learning experiences during their course of study.

Conclusions
In the past, instructors employed in-class questions to motivate students to participate in a synchronous online learning environment. However, this strategy, which proved efficient in promoting class interaction between teachers and students in a conventional physical classroom (Williamson Sprague & Dahl, 2009), may cause a negative effect on students' online learning experiences. As noted in Yamagata-Lynch's (2014) study, many participants commented that they feel anxious about learning in synchronous online learning environments (Yamagata-Lynch, 2014). One reason for this is that real-time interaction requires immediate responses, which may make students anxious (Ng, 2007). This phenomenon becomes worse for students with negative attitudes toward technologies and for those with high computer anxiety (Liaw & Huang, 2013).
The other reason is that students may experience negative emotions when they are assigned to answer questions in synchronous learning environments (Coryell & Clark, 2009;Yang, 2011), and this is especially true of Chinese students (J.-K. Chen & Wei, 2011;Laurence Lwo & Yuan, 2011).
Therefore, this paper proposes that it is possible to improve synchronous learning experiences by rewarding answers to in-class questions with humorous visual images. The reason for providing such virtual rewards is to help develop a more positive attitude about the class. It is believed that students who experience pleasurable feelings will have higher motivation to learn, will pay more Using Positive Visual Stimuli to Lighten The Online Learning Experience through In Class Questioning Lai, Liu, Liu, and Huang attention in class, and will get higher test scores (Kennedy et al., 2011;Lepper & Greene, 1978;Nittono et al., 2012). Therefore, the effects of in-class questions with funny image rewards were examined in a synchronous online learning environment.
The results for the emotional states using FaceReader facial expression software revealed that the group answering questions with rewards demonstrated a higher degree of valence than those answering the questions without rewards. In other words, rewarded questions helped these participants experience positive emotions. Furthermore, the participants' levels of attention and relaxation were analyzed by collecting their brainwave signals. The findings illustrate that the participants receiving no rewarded questions exhibited a trend toward decreasing levels of attention. However, the participants whose questions were rewarded exhibited a trend toward  Pizarro, 2004;Zillmann, 1988). These findings suggest that the instructor should accompany inclass questions with simple rewards to induce positive affective states, even though this instructional strategy does not lead to higher student performance all the time.