The effect of educational factors based on e-learning environments on comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary students

One of the problems of students in elementary school is lack of comprehension skill which has led to poor performance in all areas of learning. E-learning, as a strategy based on searching and constructing concepts, forces learners to think at high levels so that they can analyze and apply complex information; thereby, they can create an engaging online teaching and learning strategy. E-learning environments are unlimited in designing activities and engaging learners to satisfy their intuition and curiosity. Learning in this way improves thinking skills at high orders, which include content thinking, critical thinking, creative thinking and comprehension. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of educational factors that are based on e-learning environments on the comprehension skill of sixth grade elementary students in the academic year 2019-2020.

The research has been done in two parts: qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative section, by using the qualitative content analysis method, internal and external characteristics of educational factors that are based on e-learning environments were extracted from relevant sources and studies and approved by experts in the form of a model. The statistical population of the study consisted of 22854 students of the sixth grade of elementary school of Qom Province, among which 90 students from 3 schools were selected using available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Then, in order to investigate the effect of these characteristics on students' learning, a quasi-experimental method was used with three groups (experimental group: 30 students, control group one: 30 students and control group two: 30 students). Research instruments and materials included educational multimedia with the same content but with a different pattern of educational factors as well as learning test questions. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance.

The results indicate higher average scores of the experimental group (educational factor with internal and external characteristics) as compared to those of the control groups and also higher comprehension of the control group one (educational factor without internal and external characteristics) than that of the control group two (multimedia without educational factor). According to the results of dynamic speech research (pausing and raising and lowering the voice of the agent), personalized speech (informal speech instead of formal) and human voice as compared to computer voice are more acceptable and lead to better comprehension. The proximity of the competence of the agent and the learner, the skill that is proportionate with that of the learner and the variable role of the educational factor (motivator, expert and coach) lead to more learning.

 Educational factors can create rich learning environments to engage and motivate the learners. Based on the findings, it is concluded that in designing educatrional factors in multimedia, design instructions that are based on the internal and external characteristics of educational factors should be considered. Moreover, designers and manufacturers of multimedia educational software are recommended to use the standards and scientific principles in this field when designing and producing multimedia.