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Mavali, Sahar

University of British Columbia

In-class multitasking is a very common practice among university students as a strategy to tackle their many goals and commitments in life. However, research shows that in-class multitasking affects students' learning outcomes and academic performance negatively. Even though many students are aware of these potential drawbacks, in-class multitasking remains persistent in in-person and even more so in online classes. To learn more about students' motivations, perceptions, and challenges in in-class multitasking in online classes and to be able to propose solutions to their challenges, we conducted a small formative study (N=10) where we asked students to keep multitasking diaries in their online classes and followed up with semi-structured interviews. Through this study, we categorized students' challenges with in-class multitasking into 1. cognitive consequences which consist of content loss, context loss, and the overhead in time spent after the class to compensate for multitasking, and 2. metacognitive consequences which consist of the inhibition of time and attention management due to multitasking. Our insights from the preliminary study lead to the overarching requirement in design which is to support in-class multitasking by reducing its adverse effects on learning. Based on the cognitive consequences, our first design requirement is to enable immediate recovery of missed content in the class time frame. To satisfy this requirement, we propose a bichronous learning environment that enables accelerated guided viewing of past/missed content immediately. In an experimental evaluation (N=20) of these design elements, our prototype showed significant improvement in students' learning outcomes when they multitask, compared to a baseline system. Based on the metacognitive consequences, we define our second design requirement as providing assistance in metacognitive monitoring in in-class multitasking by enabling cognitive offloading. We propose topic, activity, and time-based offloading to help students manage their time and attention when multitasking under different circumstances. Our qualitative evaluation (N=9) of these design elements shows promise in their effectiveness in assisting students' self-regulation in in-class multitasking.

Text

2023-10-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86137

Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/