Effects of Cognitive Load Level on Students’ Attitude towards the Gamified Course

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive load level on students’ attitude towards the gamified course. It was also found out the students’ views regarding the 14-week gamified course. Participants consisted of 66 undergraduate students. 40 of them had low cognitive load level and 26 of them had high cognitive load level. According to the results, gamification enabled students to have a positive attitude towards the course, even though they had different cognitive load levels. Furthermore, it was determined a negative and medium significant correlation between the cognitive load and attitude of students with low cognitive load. The gamified course had a positive effect on the “Valuing” and “Positive Effects” sub-dimensions of the attitude in favor of students with low cognitive load. The positive views of many students in qualitative findings strengthened these results. While the gamified course had a negative effect on the "Resisting" sub-dimension in favor of students with high cognitive load, it did not have any significant effect on the "Cost Belief" sub-dimension. A few negative views of students in qualitative findings supported the items in these dimensions of attitude scale. Consequently, this study will strengthen the few studies examining both cognitive and affective effects of a gamified course on students. However, further studies need to confirm these results. For this reason, it is recommended to carry out such studies that reveal all the situations which can affect the attitude in the gamified course in order to achieve positive outcomes of students with different cognitive load levels.

Keywords

• gamified course
• cognitive load
• attitude.