The effect of reducing distraction on the flow-performance link in virtual experiential learning environment

In virtual experiential learning environment (VELE), distraction can reduce learners’ flow experience, learning performance, and the link between them, which are important aspects for high-quality learning. Based on the weak association model (WAM), we proposed two potential guidelines to deal with distraction and then improve these aspects. Guideline1 is directly decreasing the amount of attractive but task-irrelevant distractors in VELE. Guideline2 is enhancing the congruence between distractors and primary task by guiding attention from task-irrelevant distractors to task-relevant elements. To explore the effect of the guidelines, this paper develops a prototype VR experiential learning system, based on which two experiments were performed. Experiment 1 and experiment 2, respectively, conducted a comparative experiment to test the effect of guideline 1 and guideline 2 on flow, performance, and flow-performance link. Results show that both guidelines helped enhance the learning performance without any damage on flow experience and alleviated the weak flow-performance link. The two guidelines provide easy ways to guide task-relevant attention to optimize VELE.