Exploring Difference in Physiological Signals of Students with Different Personality in Facing Learning Challenges

Learning problems are common in the learning process. From an educator’s point of view, guidance in time for those students who are currently feeling confused is important. However, this is even more difficult in Taiwan since most students prefer not to ask questions even when they do not understand. Experienced teachers assess students’ current state via eye contact, body language, and so on. Nevertheless, these clues are not precise due to the variety of human behaviors. Several students feel nervous when facing challenges while others may not. In this research, we measured students’ Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Heart Rate (HR) during a quiz. The quiz comprised 10 questions. After the quiz, we defined the difficulty level of each question using the correct answer rates and students’ self-assessments. Then, to reflect a variety of human behaviors, we grouped students into four based on their personalities. We used the big five personalities. For students with high conscientiousness and openness to experiences, their variances of GSR between easy and difficult problems were significant. For those with high conscientiousness and low openness to experiences, the variances of GSR between easy and difficult problems were significant. Those with low conscientiousness and low openness to experiences showed that their variances of GSR between easy and difficult problems were significant. However, for students with low conscientiousness and high openness to experiences, their variances of GSR and HR between easy and difficult problems were not significant. The findings suggested that the difference in physiological signals of students with different personalities when facing learning challenges existed.