Displayed enthusiasm attracts attention and improves recall

Instructor enthusiasm has been shown to enhance a range of positive student outcomes including recall, but the underlying mechanisms for the favourable effects of teacher enthusiasm are still largely unknown.

We hypothesized that attention paid to the instructor is one mechanism and that the positive effects of enthusiasm will disappear when attention is captured by another task.

In a series of three studies, we involved fourth and fifth graders in listening to texts read aloud with high or low levels of displayed enthusiasm.

In Study 1, we obtained self-reported and observed behavioural indicators of attention while students were read texts with high versus low enthusiasm. In Study 2, we additionally manipulated attention by comparing a group who performed a concurrent attentional task while listening to the texts read with high or low enthusiasm to a group who only listened to the texts. In Study 3, we compared the attention-catching concurrent task used in Study 2 to a non-attention-catching dual task.

Our results confirm that displayed enthusiasm captures attention and that attention partially explains the positive effect of displayed enthusiasm on recall.