Title: Designing learner control in instructional software: a lens of 'time spent on tasks' to determine the mental effort

Authors: Ünal Çakiroğlu; Dilara Arzugül Aksoy; Ayşegül Gencan; Hasan Şen

Addresses: Fatih Faculty of Education, Trabzon University, Turkey ' Vocational School of Justice, Bayburt University, Turkey ' Institute of Graduate Studies, Trabzon University, Turkey ' Fatih Faculty of Education, Trabzon University, Turkey

Abstract: This study aims to determine the relationships between mental effort and the use of learner controls while working with instructional software. Various versions of instructional software including control components were developed to examine this relationship. Twenty-four secondary school students participated in the study and studied with instructional software including different controls in the content pages. All content pages consisted of the content area, image area, and control panel components. Five different page templates including different positions of these components were placed on the pages. Quantitative data were gathered from the cognitive load scale and the time spent on tasks was used for measuring the mental effort spent on the tasks in the software. The results indicated that students who used more controls spent more mental effort. Along with the study findings, the factors affecting the perceptions of cognitive load regarding the time spent on the controls were discussed. Implications were suggested for designers within the cognitive effects of learner control.

Keywords: learner control; cognitive load; instructional software; mental effort.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLT.2022.127192

International Journal of Learning Technology, 2022 Vol.17 No.3, pp.246 - 266

Received: 30 Jul 2021
Accepted: 13 Feb 2022
Published online: 25 Nov 2022 *

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