There is research that making education material easy is beneficial as it decreases cognitive load.

• But there is also research that making the material harder is beneficial as it makes it easier to recall information in the future.

Harder material is related to the idea that deep cognitive processing of information results in better retention.

• Like desirable difficulties.

Disfluency: when information is harder to process.

• Disfluency can be shown through changing fonts.
• Alter et al. (2007): subjects who took a disfluent font test performed better.

Disfluency may result in the reader thinking that they do not understand the material which pushes them to try harder to learn. This also can lead to higher cognitive thinking.

• But it can also result in readers becoming less motivated and give up on learning materials.