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Does the processing fluency of a syllabus affect the forecasted grade and course difficulty?
1Department of Psychology, Hamline University, St Paul, MN 55104, USA. kguenther@gw.hamline.edu
Psychological Reports
|August 18, 2012
Summary
Processing fluency, or ease of information processing, did not influence college students' course grade forecasts when the information directly impacted their lives. However, clearer syllabus fonts did impact forecasts in a second experiment.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Processing fluency, the ease with which information is processed, is known to influence cognitive tasks.
- Previous research has not extensively explored processing fluency within real-life decision-making contexts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of processing fluency on cognitive forecasts in a real-world academic setting.
- To determine if processing fluency affects students' expectations about course difficulty and performance.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: College students read course syllabi with varying font clarity and vocabulary difficulty, then forecasted grades and difficulty.
- Experiment 2: Statistics students read a cognitive psychology syllabus with varied font clarity, forecasting grades and difficulty.
Main Results:
- Experiment 1 found no significant differences in grade or difficulty forecasts based on syllabus fluency.
- Experiment 2 showed that clearer syllabus fonts led to more optimistic grade forecasts and lower perceived difficulty.
Conclusions:
- Processing fluency may be less influential when individuals perceive the information as personally relevant and consequential.
- Real-life context and personal stakes can override typical processing fluency effects on judgment and decision-making.
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