Presenter: Erika Moe – Human Physiology
Faculty Mentor(s): Sarah DuBrow, Lindsay Rait
Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation
The asynchronous nature of remote classes brought by COVID-19 provides students greater control over their daily studies and has proven to be a double-edged sword. To better understand the effect of a growing asynchronous workload, subjects completed two scenarios: one with a condensed, structured workload (2-topic condition) and another with a larger workload (8-topic condition). It was hypothesized that increasing workload (creating a “content overload”) would be detrimental for all students. Furthermore, individuals who preferred remote learning would perform best with larger presented workloads. Individuals who preferred in-person learning would perform best with a structured, condensed presented workload. Subjects read passages on a variety of academic topics and were tested the next day in an SAT-like format. Additionally, pre- and post-test questionnaires were completed for correlations between learning preference and differences between conditions. Data analysis is ongoing. A paired t-test for within-subject analysis will compare the average test results of the 2-topic and 8-topic conditions. The results of this study will provide insight into how COVID online classes have affected the comprehension of the student population. With a better understanding of the content overload effect, educational workers will have the opportunity to better tailor their remote lesson plans for a diverse body of students with different attentional, memory, and cognitive abilities.