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Better together? Effects of task complexity and social setting on performance and cognitive load
Marloes L Nederhand1,2, Floris Kervers1, Leandra Fitriyadi1
1Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Task complexity impacts online learning. While low complexity tasks benefit from collaboration, high complexity tasks see reduced performance when groups work together, challenging prior offline findings.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Technology
Background:
- Cognitive Load Theory is crucial for understanding learning.
- Task complexity and cognitive load affect learning efficiency.
- Previous research indicates group performance varies with task complexity in offline settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate task complexity's effects on performance, cognitive load, and efficiency in online learning.
- Compare individual versus group performance in an online environment.
- Validate offline educational principles in online settings.
Main Methods:
- Between-subjects design with 85 university students.
- Tasks varied in complexity (low vs. high).
- Participants completed tasks individually or in groups.
Main Results:
- Low-complexity tasks yielded higher performance, lower cognitive load, and greater efficiency.
- Collaboration improved performance on low-complexity tasks.
- Collaboration reduced performance on high-complexity tasks.
Conclusions:
- Educational principles need validation in online settings.
- Findings offer insights for optimizing online collaborative learning.
- Results guide the development of instructions balancing performance and cognitive load.
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