Flow, performance and moderators of challenge-skill balance
Engeser, S., & Rheinberg, F. (2008). 'Flow, performance and moderators of challenge-skill balance.' Motivation and Emotion, 32, 158-172. doi:10.1007/s11031-008-9102-4. the study that tested the book's central mechanism by measuring flow in its components rather than defining it by the ratio. Study 1 took 246 students preparing for a compulsory first-semester statistics exam at Potsdam and the Technical University of Berlin, flow measured ten minutes into a typical revision task, exam scores obtained from teachers. A significant main effect for skill, a marginal and negative main effect for difficulty, and an interaction of difficulty and skill with a probability value of 0.58, which the article renders in words as nowhere near conventional significance. Their sentence: 'Thus, neither the channel model nor the quadrant model was empirically supported, and difficulty even had a negative influence on flow.' And the conclusion: 'The strong reliance on the skill-challenge balance needs to be questioned.' Flow predicted performance in two of their three studies controlling for prior ability, so the paper is not a dismissal of the construct. They also state the measurement wish: the ideal would be to measure flow online via unobtrusive physiological or
Engeser, S., & Rheinberg, F. (2008). 'Flow, performance and moderators of challenge-skill balance.' Motivation and Emotion, 32, 158-172. doi:10.1007/s11031-008-9102-4. the study that tested the book's central mechanism by measuring flow in its components rather than defining it by the ratio. Study 1 took 246 students preparing for a compulsory first-semester statistics exam at Potsdam and the Technical University of Berlin, flow measured ten minutes into a typical revision task, exam scores obtained from teachers. A significant main effect for skill, a marginal and negative main effect for difficulty, and an interaction of difficulty and skill with a probability value of 0.58, which the article renders in words as nowhere near conventional significance. Their sentence: 'Thus, neither the channel model nor the quadrant model was empirically supported, and difficulty even had a negative influence on flow.' And the conclusion: 'The strong reliance on the skill-challenge balance needs to be questioned.' Flow predicted performance in two of their three studies controlling for prior ability, so the paper is not a dismissal of the construct. They also state the measurement wish: the ideal would be to measure flow online via unobtrusive physiological or
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Engeser, S., & Rheinberg, F. (2008). Flow, performance and moderators of challenge-skill balance. Motivation and Emotion, 32, 158-172.