EduGage: Methods and Dataset for Sensor-Based Momentary Assessment of Engagement in Self-Guided Video Learning

TL;DR

This paper presents EduGage, a multimodal sensor dataset and system for estimating learner engagement during self-guided video learning, demonstrating the feasibility and challenges of fine-grained engagement measurement.

Contribution

It introduces a new dataset and evaluation of multimodal sensing methods for real-time engagement estimation in self-guided learning environments.

Findings

Model achieves MAE of 0.81 and 83.75% within-1 accuracy in engagement estimation.

Multimodal signals outperform sensor-free and baseline models.

Lightweight behavioral and physiological signals are more practical than full multimodal setups.

Abstract

Engagement, which links to attentional, emotional, and cognitive dimensions, plays an important role in learning. In online and video-based learning environments, learners often need to regulate their own interactions with instructional materials. Measuring and reflecting on engagement can therefore support both learners and adaptive learning systems. In this study, we use wearable and camera-based sensing devices to collect physiological and motion signals, including PPG, ECG, EDA, EEG, IMU, heart rate, temperature, and eye-tracking data, to estimate learner engagement. We conducted a user study with 16 participants in a video-based learning scenario, where participants completed learning tasks and provided repeated in-situ self-reports of engagement through brief probes. We develop and evaluate a system for engagement estimation, compare different sensing modalities, and further analyze the feasibility and effectiveness of multimodal modeling for characterizing learner engagement. Across participant-based cross-validation, our model achieves an MAE of 0.81, 83.75% within-1 accuracy, 73.93% binary accuracy, and 68.45% binary Macro-F1, outperforming sensor-free, statistical, deep temporal, foundation-model, and LLM-based baselines. Our results suggest that fine-grained engagement estimation is feasible but inherently noisy, and that practical systems should prioritize lightweight combinations of behavioral and physiological signals over full multimodal instrumentation. We release the EduGage dataset, including synchronized multimodal sensor signals, probe-aligned momentary engagement labels, video metadata, quizzes, and study materials, to support reproducible research on fine-grained sensor-based engagement modeling in self-guided learning.