Motivational interventions can lower perceived cognitive load and improve retention and transfer, indicating load perception is partly independent of task difficulty¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2022 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? A growth mindset intervention lowered perceived cognitive load and fostered higher retention and transfer scores. → Alexander Skulmowski & Kate Man Xu 2022

Evidence¶

Alexander Skulmowski & Kate Man Xu 2022¶

Alexander Skulmowski & Kate Man Xu. (2022). Understanding Cognitive Load in Digital and Online Learning: a New Perspective on Extraneous Cognitive Load. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09624-7

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports, citing Xu et al. (2020), that "the inclusion of a motivation prompt, the growth mindset intervention, lowered levels of perceived cognitive load and fostered higher retention and transfer scores". The study was not focused on digital learning but suggests motivation can counteract cognitive burden.

"the inclusion of a motivation prompt, the growth mindset intervention, lowered levels of perceived cognitive load and fostered higher retention and transfer scores."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Growth-mindset interventions have weak average effects on achievement, including a negligible GPA gain (d = 0.11) for lower-achieving US ninth-graders in one preregistered national trial — related
• Prior knowledge and intervention condition predict repeated cognitive load and interest measures: prior knowledge lowers effort and difficulty and raises interest and understanding, and prompting groups perceive tasks as more difficult — related
• AI assistance reduces subjective mental effort across all tasks even when it does not reduce completion time, dissociating time and effort — related
• Self-reported mental effort increased less across tasks in the ChatGPT condition while perceived difficulty rose equally in both groups — related
• The effect of a growth mindset intervention does not interact with knowledge type for motivation, cognitive load, or recall — reports the opposite