Television Is Still “Easy” and Print Is Still “Tough”? More Than 30 Years of Research on the Amount of Invested Mental Effort

Abstract

We provide a literature overview of 30 years of research on the amount of invested mental effort (AIME, Salomon, 1984), illuminating relevant literature in this field. Since the introduction of AIME, this concept appears to have vanished. To obtain a clearer picture of where the theory of AIME has diffused, we conducted a literature search focusing on the period 1985–2015. We examined scientific articles (N = 244) that cite Salomon (1984) and content-analyzed their keywords. Based on these keywords, we identified seven content clusters: affect and motivation, application fields, cognition and learning, education and teaching, media technology, learning with media technology, and methods. We present selected works of each content cluster and describe in which research field the articles had been published. Results indicate that AIME was most commonly (but not exclusively) referred to in the area of educational psychology indicating its importance regarding learning and education, thereby investigating print and TV, as well as new media. From a methodological perspective, research applied various research methods (e.g., longitudinal studies, experimental designs, theoretical analysis) and samples (e.g., children, college students, low income families). From these findings, the importance of AIME for further research is discussed.

Media effects accompanying the use of recorded lecture videos in undergraduate mathematics instruction

“…As Greenfield (2009) sums up related research, 'reading is associated with reflection, television is associated with impulsivity' (p. 71). It may then come as little surprise that some now argue the use of television is conditioning people to using poorer executive functioning alongside automatic processes that may be erroneous and even difficult to undo (Schwab et al, 2018;Wolf, 2017). Such conditioning appears consistent with the effect found in Study 1 where a dependence on RLVs for learning was linked to an increase in surface approaches to learning mathematics.…”

When Video Improves Learning in Higher Education

“…In particular, RLVs appear to enable students to engage in surface learning-such as rote memorization-of course content, which leads to poorer academic performance [54,55]. As early research suggests, mathematics students approach the use of RLVs in similar ways as they approach viewing television [15], weakening their cognitive investment [11][12][13][14]. In sum, though such approaches may be sufficient to undertake tasks involving lower-level cognitive processing, such as learning facts or acquiring procedural knowledge, they may be detrimental when tasks require higher-level processes, such as acquiring richly connected conceptual knowledge [56].…”

“…Some insight, however, may be gained from research directed at related media. For example, almost a century after its invention, television viewing continues to be associated with a weakened cognitive investment [11][12][13][14]. Indeed, some argue television viewing is conditioning people to use 'poorer executive functioning alongside automatic processes that may be erroneous and even difficult to undo' ( [15], p. 3019).…”

Can an angry pedagogical agent enhance mental effort and learning performance in a multimedia learning environment?

“…It is measured through a self-reported survey to reflect the extent to which a learner engages in deep and mindful processing during the learning process (Salomon, 1983). The model states that learners tend to engage in a deeper and more thoughtful information processing that promotes learning when they believe that the learning material demands more effort than low effort (Salomon, 1983; Schwab et al , 2018; Cierniak et al , 2009). The AIME can predict learning performance – a higher AIME score has been shown to relate to superior learning performance (Cierniak et al , 2009).…”