Samuel Doyle, M.S., HPT’s Post

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Change Management | Technology | Training | Leadership & Diversity Coach | Youth Coach | Mindfulness 5.0 Coach

21ST CENTURY HUMAN LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE . . . is regularly-interrupted with media notifications. What must Learning Specialists consider when designing and delivering instructional content and measuring performance? ------  "Media Multitasking Performance and Its Cognitive Requirements" "Media multitasking refers to the behavior of consuming multiple items or streams of information simultaneously (Ophir et al., 2009). In general, the human cognitive system is not well equipped for this type of information intake and processing. Several theoretical approaches, such as the capacity model of attention (Kahneman, 1973), the limited capacity hypothesis (Baddeley, 1969), the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP; Lang, 2000, 2006), or the Threaded Cognition Model (Salvucci & Taatgen, 2008) assume that media multitasking costs are based on limited attentional and cognitive resources. If multiple tasks need to be completed simultaneously or in short succession, the limited resources must either be divided among these tasks or, when resources cannot be divided, only one task can be conducted at a given time, resulting in rapid and repeated switching between tasks (Salvucci & Taatgen, 2008). This can result in decreased performance.The Cognitive Load Theory (CLT; Sweller, 2010) further differentiates between three types of load that consume the limited capacity of the cognitive system, specifically of the working memory. This theory has been initially introduced to describe how the limitations of working memory affect information processing in instructional contexts. The CTL differentiates between three types of load on the working memory that occur when interacting with learning material. This differentiation provides insights on why media multitasking demands can burden the cognitive system and can thus impair performance. Intrinsic load describes the inherent difficulty and complexity of a task itself. Extraneous load is unnecessary cognitive load imposed by poorly designed instructional materials or irrelevant information. Germane load describes cognitive efforts of meaningful processing. The effort of resource allocation and task-switching that comes with media multitasking can be considered extraneous load within the terminology of the CTL. High extraneous load leaves less resources for germane load and thus meaningful processing and ultimately task performance. Accordingly, research on the effects of media multitasking has shown that scrolling social media sites, texting, or background TV can impair reading speed and comprehension or attention in a lecture as well as learning gains when watching instructional videos (e.g., Armstrong & Chung, 2000; Bowman et al., 2010; Demirbilek & Talan, 2018; Dietz & Henrich, 2014; Dönmez & Akbulut, 2021; Jeong & Hwang, 2012)."

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