The Influence Of Learning Material Complexity And Presenting Learning Objective On Seductive Detail Affect And Its Mechanism

Seductive details were originally added to teaching materials to attract students’ attention and increase their interest in learning.On the one hand,seductive details have emotional benefits that cannot be ignored;on the other hand,seductive details have been found to damage students’ cognitive processes and thus reduce their academic performance,resulting in seductive details effect.However,with the continuous enrichment of research,it is found that there are certain boundary conditions for the effect of seductive details.These findings have important significance for how to play the positive role of seductive details and reduce its adverse effects.Based on previous studies,this study first takes the complexity of learning materials as an assumed boundary condition for the seductive detail effect to test whether the seductive detail effect only occurs under the condition of high complexity of learning materials.The second purpose of this study is to examine whether presenting learning goals can reduce the seductive detail effect and its mechanism under the condition of highly complex learning materials.In order to answer the above questions,this study took college students as subjects,manipulated the complexity,seductive details and learning objectives of the learning materials in the multimedia learning about viruses and immunity,and measured the learners’ retention and transfer performance,self-reported cognitive load,learning motivation,situational interest and eye movement indicators during the learning process.The study consisted of two experiments.In experiment 1,used a 2(seductive details: with vs.without)× 2(complexity of learning material: simple vs.Complex)between-subjects design;In experiment 2,used a 2(seductive details: with vs.without)× 2(learning goals :with vs.without)between-subjects design.The results of experiment 1 show that:(1)the complexity of learning materials moderates the effect of seductive details,that is,under the condition of complex learning materials,the retention and transfer performance of learners with seductive details is lower than that of those without.However,there was no significant difference in the retention and transfer performance of learners in the simple learning materials group with or without seductive details.(2)The complexity of learning materials has a significant impact on learners’ reported internal cognitive load and extra cognitive load.Compared with the simple materials group,learners in the complex materials group reported higher internal cognitive load and extra cognitive load.The results of experiment 2 show that:(1)Under the condition of high complexity of learning materials,the presentation of learning objectives can significantly reduce the adverse impact of seductive details on grades,that is,under the condition of no presentation of learning objectives,the retention and transfer performance of learners without seductive details group is significantly higher than that of learners with seductive details group,while under the condition of presenting learning objectives,The retention and transfer performance of learners with seductive details group was significantly higher than that of learners without seductive details group,showing a reversal effect of seductive details.(2)Learning goals have a significant impact on learners’ reported internal cognitive load.Learners who present learning goals report significantly higher internal cognitive load than those who do not present learning goals.(3)seductive details have a significant impact on learners’ reported learning motivation and situational interest.Learners with seductive details report significantly higher learning motivation and situational interest than those without seductive details.(4)Learning objectives and seductive details have significant interaction effect on the dwell time,percentage of dwell time,fixation count and percentage of fixation count of the interest area of the learning text.Under the condition of no learning objectives presented,learners without seductive details group have significantly higher dwell time and fixation count than learners with seductive details group.Under the condition of learning objectives presented,There was no significant difference in dwell time and fixation count in the interest area of the learning text between the groups with or without seductive details.(5)The dwell time and fixation count play a partial mediating role in the influence of learning goals on achievement retention;the dwell time plays a partial mediating role in the influence of learning goals on transfer achievement.The fixation count plays a partial mediating role in the influence of learning goals on retention achievement in seductive details condition.In conclusion,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)The complexity of learning materials is an important boundary condition for the seductive detail effect.Adding seductive details to simple learning materials does not affect learners’ academic performance,while adding seductive details to complex learning materials will reduce learners’ academic performance,showing the effect of seductive details.(2)Adding seductive details to learning materials has a positive effect on improving learners’ learning motivation and situational interest.(3)The presentation of learning objectives plays a moderating role in the effect of seductive details.Presenting learning objectives improves learning performance by increasing learners’ dwell time and fixation count of learning texts.Learners’ dwell time and fixation count of learning texts play a mediating role in the influence of the presentation of learning objectives on learning performance.Under condition of seductive details,The fixation count on learning text plays a mediating role in the influence of learning goal presentation on learning achievement.