Concept
Short Pauses and Course Outcomes
- Negative correlations were found between the relative amounts of short pauses and exam scores. However, it is unclear whether the short pauses were to look at other course material (on-task), or off-task behavior (such as going on social media).
- This negative correlation, however, aligns with previous research in that if students were off-task during the pauses, this would be detrimental and for the very short off-task times, it could be considered multitasking which would also be detrimental. Simultaneously, with a short enough pause, the advantages from the spacing effect would not have time to occur.
- In a similar effect, even if the students were on task during the pauses, the negative effects of task-switching would still occur. This also indicates a higher cognitive load of the task in which the student is unable to hold all information necessary for the problem and has to jump back and forth between material.
- The “downslide” effect described by Collins & Genter can be applied to this research and programming in general. Downsliding is when an individuals “slides down” from higher to lower level processing, ultimately losing the big picture. They use this to suggest that both off-task and on-task pauses can harm the studying and learning process.
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Updated 2021-01-31
Tags
Psychology
Social Science
Empirical Science
Science