Applying Interleaving Strategy of Learning Materials and Perceptual Modality to Address Secondary Students' Need to Restore Cognitive Capacity

Wen Chen; Chuansheng Chen; Baoping Li; Jiacai Zhang

doi:10.3390/ijerph19127505

Applying Interleaving Strategy of Learning Materials and Perceptual Modality to Address Secondary Students' Need to Restore Cognitive Capacity

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jun 19;19(12):7505. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19127505.

Authors

Wen Chen^{1

2

3}, Chuansheng Chen⁴, Baoping Li^{2

5}, Jiacai Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ College of Teacher Education, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China.
² Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
³ School of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
⁴ Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
⁵ Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.

Abstract

Online courses are prevalent around the world, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Long hours of highly demanding online learning can lead to mental fatigue and cognitive depletion. According to Attention Restoration Theory, 'being away' or a mental shift could be an important strategy to allow a person to recover from the cognitive overload. The present study aimed to test the interleaving strategy as a mental shift method to help sustain students' online learning attention and to improve learning outcomes. A total of 81 seventh-grade Chinese students were randomly assigned to four learning conditions: blocked (by subject matter) micro-lectures with auditory textual information (B-A condition), blocked (by subject matter) micro-lectures with visual textual information (B-V condition), interleaved (by subject matter) micro-lectures with auditory textual information (I-A condition), and interleaved micro-lectures by both perceptual modality and subject matter (I-all condition). We collected self-reported data on subjective cognitive load (SCL) and attention level, EEG data during the 40 min of online learning, and test results to assess learning outcomes. The results showed that the I-all condition showed the best overall outcomes (best performance, low SCL, and high attention). This study suggests that interleaving by both subject matter and perceptual modality should be preferred in scheduling and planning online classes.

Keywords: EEG; direct attention; interleaving effect; micro-lectures.

Publication types

Randomized Controlled Trial
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Cognition
Humans
Learning
Pandemics* / prevention & control
Students / psychology

Grants and funding

This research is funded by the project “the Research on Internet plus Educational System” (Project No. 16JZD043) from the Major Research Projects in Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Project No. 2018M631365 and No. 2019T120060) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Provincial Universities of Zhejiang (Project No. SJWY2022009).