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The effin factor concerns the appeal or lack of appeal of some activity or resource. It involves the effort a
learner is willing to invest in pursuing an activity or in accessing a resource, in relation to the learner's
current intrinsic interest in the topic. The effin factor deals with the motivation of the learner, but with
intrinsic motivation only (Berline, 1960), one related largely to curiosity (because of its relation to
knowledge, this is known as epistemic curiosity).
The effin factor is at the center of learning technology. It builds on our natural curiosity about the world
around us, and on the potential of technology to make information easy to obtain. We are rather flighty in
our curiosity and our attention keeps shifting as we encounter new and interesting things in our dealings
with the world. It is important therefore that the satiation of our appetite for information occur at the time
of need, otherwise there is a good chance that interest will be lost. Hence the importance of immediate
availability of the needed information. Any delay increases the mental effort in keeping the interest alive.
The effin factor embodies a straightforward relationship: the more the effort needed to obtain the needed
information, the more that topic must be of interest to the learner. If the required effort is great, only
topics of very high interest will be pursued. On the other hand, if the required effort is minimal, then
many topics become of interest. As web technology reduces the effort to access information, the potential
for interest in many diverse topics grows for individuals. Natural curiosity has at last a chance to blossom.
The central idea developed here is that information is becoming readily accessible in a variety of
compelling forms, and that this information-rich context can dramatically affect how students and people
in general go about learning. From that notion follow implications for how we design instruction, that is
for how we develop learning environments.
An initial design model
The design model presented here is framed by the need to interest the user on a continual basis. This can
be thought of in terms of provoking learning, that is enabling it to spontaneously happen in the context of
the user's interaction with web resources as this interaction takes place in a somewhat un-planned and
perhaps even haphazard way.
The design model is couched within a standard software development life-cycle process based on a general
systems approach. Thus, various elements of requirements specification conducted up-front and
prototyping, evaluation, construction and support at the back-end help ensure a high level of quality of the
products designed following the model.
The model's core specificity, however, revolves around 2 central design processes dealing respectively
with information specification / representation and problem-solution tasking. The paper presents the
specifics of the model, including the core process activities based on structural knowledge determination,
information mapping, multimedia representation, cognitive task analysis and interfacing.
No design model is universal and it is important to situate the present model in terms of appropriateness.
Specifically, how appropriate the model may be for different types of learning needs to be examined. The
paper discusses this issue in terms of appropriateness for procedural, declarative, and cultural learning.
It also explores the issue from the older but still current Piagetian perspective of assimilation and
accommodation phenomena in learning.
Conclusion
The paper concludes with the view that the web context provides a novel setting for learning that is
different in a fundamental way from its predecessor non-information-rich setting and that this new setting