Student Perceptions and Learning After a Cognitive Load-Based Intervention to Reduce Multitasking Behaviors

Abstract

With the influx of educational and personal technologies in the classroom, parents, faculty, and students must find strategies to limit the seductive pull of multitasking. The purpose of this study is to determine if an awareness training and experience using website-blocking software improves learning in a lecture course, and if this experience changes students' multitasking beliefs and planned future behavior with respect to multitasking. This was an experimental study for students in a graduate level occupational and physical therapy program. Students were randomized into two groups. The experimental group received a two-pronged intervention: an education session with awareness exercises on multitasking and a website-blocking software for student use during lectures. Five content knowledge exams were administered and analyzed for group differences in learning. Results: The findings in this study showed that the awareness training and experience using Freedom software did not significantly improve learning in the short-term. Although there was no significant change in student beliefs on their ability to multitask, students reported the amount of time spent multitasking in class decreased across courses, and students reported an increase in the use of strategies to help them maintain attention in class. This finding can be explained using the Theory of Planned Behavior's (Azjen, 1991) predictor of a change of perceived behavioral control by having additional strategies to implement when tempted to multitask which can in turn increase the student's intention to minimize their multitasking behaviors as shown by the decrease in the number of minutes spent multitasking in classes across the curriculum.