Scholarlink

<p>Even though the study sequence of mixing study topics (“interleaving”) is better for learning than studying one topic at a time (“blocking”), people consistently underestimate the former and favor the latter. A barrier to interleaving is that it feels more difficult than blocking and people tend to judge more effortful strategies as less effective for learning (the “misinterpreted effort hypothesis”). However, reframing the study situation as something that the student <i>chooses</i> to invest in versus something that is <i>required</i> of them has been found to counter the view that easier learning equals better learning. In the current study, we compared the effects of effort framing (effort-as-investment or effort-as-requirement) on participants’ decisions to interleave or block their study. In the effort-as-invested condition, the more effortful that participants thought interleaving was compared to blocking, the more effective they perceived interleaving to be for learning, and the more likely they were to choose to interleave in the future. This pattern was the opposite of that found in the effort-as-required condition. However, reframing effort did not significantly increase self-regulated decisions to interleave; overall only 17% chose to interleave. These findings suggest that the misinterpreted effort hypothesis cannot fully account for the overwhelming bias for blocking.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Testing the misinterpreted effort hypothesis: reframing effort changes perceived effort and its relationship to perceived learning, but does not affect decisions to interleave

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年12月11日

查看全文
  • Connie M. Fralick,
  • Veronica X. Yan

摘要

Even though the study sequence of mixing study topics (“interleaving”) is better for learning than studying one topic at a time (“blocking”), people consistently underestimate the former and favor the latter. A barrier to interleaving is that it feels more difficult than blocking and people tend to judge more effortful strategies as less effective for learning (the “misinterpreted effort hypothesis”). However, reframing the study situation as something that the student chooses to invest in versus something that is required of them has been found to counter the view that easier learning equals better learning. In the current study, we compared the effects of effort framing (effort-as-investment or effort-as-requirement) on participants’ decisions to interleave or block their study. In the effort-as-invested condition, the more effortful that participants thought interleaving was compared to blocking, the more effective they perceived interleaving to be for learning, and the more likely they were to choose to interleave in the future. This pattern was the opposite of that found in the effort-as-required condition. However, reframing effort did not significantly increase self-regulated decisions to interleave; overall only 17% chose to interleave. These findings suggest that the misinterpreted effort hypothesis cannot fully account for the overwhelming bias for blocking.