Influence of mood and curiosity on mental effort and learning performance during problem solving in adaptive learning

Werlen, Egon and Hirt, Franziska (2019) Influence of mood and curiosity on mental effort and learning performance during problem solving in adaptive learning. UNSPECIFIED. In: 16th SPS SGP SSP Conference, September 09-11, 2019, Bern 16th SPS SGP SSP Conference, 09-11 September 2019, Bern, Switzerland.

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Abstract

In the context of adaptive learning designs, we are interested in gaining insight into the influence that mood and curiosity exert on effort and performance. The influence of mood on executive functions is explained best with the mood-as-information theory. Mood is linked to curiosity, which can be seen as a kind of intrinsic motivation. Epistemic curiosity manifests the desire for new information and learning. Students of an adaptive course were recommended to either solve a step-by-step task or a one-step task. The result of that task then determined the difficulty of the following one and so on. Before each task, students answered questions about mood and curiosity and after each task, they reported on mood and mental effort associated with each task (intrinsic cognitive load). The 81 participants – mostly male (99%) industrial engineer students with a mean age of 30 - were part of an applied sciences course. The path model that resulted from the analyses had a good fit. Type of task (one-step; step-by-step) was a moderator for the model. Generally, better mood led to more mental effort (cognitive load). Higher task scores and curiosity led to better mood after task execution. Solving the more difficult one-step tasks had the effect that besides mood, curiosity also led to more mental effort, which in turn resulted in slightly lower task scores. This corresponds to the “mood as cognitive load” theory. Missing these effects for the step-by-step tasks could be an indication that the used adaptive learning design works well.

Item Type:	Article in conference proceedings or Presentation at a conference (Speech)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	moodd, curiosity, mental effort, learning performance, adaptive learning
Subjects:	Education > Academic studies in education > Academic studies in adult education
Department/unit:	Fernfachhochschule Schweiz
Depositing User:	Egon Werlen
Date Deposited:	20 Sep 2019 04:29
Last Modified:	20 Sep 2019 04:29
URI:	http://repository.supsi.ch/id/eprint/11023

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