Studying Affect Dynamics and Chronometry Using Sensor-Free Detectors

Student affect has been found to correlate with short- and long-term learning outcomes, including college attendance as well as interest and involvement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. However, there still remain significant questions about the processes by which affect shifts and develops during the learning process. Much of this research can be split into affect dynamics, the study of the temporal transitions between affective states, and affective chronometry, the study of how an affect state emerges and dissipates over time. Thus far, these affective processes have been primarily studied using field observations, sensors, or student self-report measures; however, these approaches can be coarse, and obtaining finer-grained data produces challenges to data fidelity. Recent developments in sensor-free detectors of student affect, utilizing only the data from student interactions with a computer-based learning platform, open an opportunity to study affect dynamics and chronometry at moment-to-moment levels of granularity. This work presents a novel approach, applying sensor-free detectors to study these two prominent problems in affective research. [For the full proceedings, see ED593090.]