Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Fauziah Redzuan et al.
emotions and opinions. They include adjectives, nouns, verbs, and sentences (Nagamachi 2011).
Kansei words are best understood in their adjective form (Nagamachi and Lokman 2011). Therefore,
all the 511 Kansei words were checked properly for their adjective and noun forms, and then
submitted
to the expert for validation.
The first expert, Expert (A) is a linguistic with 20 years experience in the field. Expert (A) validated and
checked whether all of the words were in their proper adjective and noun form. Expert (A) also
suggested several more words related to learning and emotions. The second expert, Expert (B) is an
educational psychologist who has been involved in the area for more than 10 years. Expert (B)
validated the Kansei words and judged whether each was related to online learning or general
learning. The third expert, Expert (C) is a team of eLearning designers and instructional designers
who have been involved in this area for more than four years. From the designers’ team, most of the
negative words were eliminated and suggested as unsuitable for eLearning. This was justified by the
designers’ expertise in the area that suggest eLearning to induce positive emotions to the user.
However, the designers also agreed that sometimes negative emotion could be generated from
eLearning materials. Therefore, negative emotion is also a valid construct to measure designs that
may evoke a negative emotional
experience. Finally, from all of the experts’ validations, a set of 478
Kansei words were concluded.
7.3 Configuration of SD scale
The Semantic Differential (SD) scale was then developed for the 478 Kansei words. According to
Nagamachi and Lokman (2011), a 5-level rating has been widely used for SD scales. They suggested
avoiding too many levels, as more levels make respondents more confused. In addition, according to
Nagamachi (in Lokman and Nagamachi 2010), the 5-degree scale is better than other scales, such as
the 7-, 9- or 11-degree scales, as it is best suited to the style of human judgment. Therefore, we used
a 5-level rating for this research.
7.4 Primary evaluation experiment
The primary evaluation experiment was conducted using respondents comprising 36 undergraduate
students in the area of Information Technology. The selection of respondents was based on the
subject (i.e., the students or the respondents) selection procedure. A purposive sampling technique
was used to select the students. Selection criteria included firstly, that the students were studying in
the area of Information Technology; secondly, that they were currently enrolled or had taken the
database course, and thirdly, that they had the ability to express their emotions. Initially, around 100
students took a short survey to test their ability to express their emotions. Following that test, only 55
students were selected and invited to complete the primary evaluation
experiment. Of these, only 36
students
accepted the invitation and completed the experiment.
As for the specimens (i.e., the online database courses), ten specimens were selected based on the
criteria that the design elements, such as colour, typography, layout, content, and interaction of each
differed from one another. The specimens are available online. Each specimen was assigned a
number
(Specimen No.) by the researcher.
The primary evaluation experiment conducted in a computer laboratory, took 6.5 hours. There were
breaks every two hours to help respondents to refresh their mind. Each specimen was evaluated
using the 478 Kansei words. Each respondent was assigned a number (Subject No.) by the
researcher and a computer with an Internet connection was used to do the experiment. The
respondents interacted with the actual specimens online and the suggested time for the actual
evaluation for each specimen was between 20 to 30 minutes. In addition, to minimize the effects of
fatigue, boredom, or bias, the 478 Kansei words were arranged into two different versions. To further
help the respondents verify the meaning of the Kansei words, Malay translations
were provided, even
though the medium of the instructions of the respondents’ university is English.
8. Analysis and discussion
8.1 Statistical analysis
Some data cleaning was performed on the collected data, and the average evaluation values were
calculated. The average evaluation data was then analysed using JMP software, in order to
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