AN INVESTIGATION OF THE SEDUCTIVE DETAILS EFFECT FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF MOTIVATION AND COGNITION

Thesis (Ph.D.), Educational Psychology, Washington State UniversityAlthough numerous studies have investigated the seductive details effect in multimedia learning, few studies examined the seductive details effect using motivational frameworks. In order to fill the gap, the present study used a multiple regression model to examine the predictive relationship between four types of interest and post-task performance of participants who either received seductive details or base-only passage. Participants (N = 258) were asked to learn about geology in either the seductive details group or base passage group. Results of variance analyses showed the seductive details group rated learning material significantly higher in triggered situational interest than did the base passage group. Furthermore, the results showed that, triggered situational interest mediated the effects of seductive details on recall while there was no mediation effect via maintained situational interest. In addition, emerging and well-developed individual interest moderated the effects of seductive details differently. In sum, results indicate that different types of interest play different roles in learning when seductive details are involved. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed and future directions are presented. Research on the seductive details effect on reading expository texts in multimedia learning environments has grown over the past few decades. However, less is known when seductive details are encountered in learning through worked-examples to solve problems. Thus, it is necessary to examine the seductive details effect when solving problems in a worked-example-based multimedia learning environment and the effect of focused self-explanation on seductive details. In the present experiment, the participants (N = 80) were randomly assigned to one of four different conditions and received a multimedia lesson about electrical circuits on the computer: (a) seductive details, (b) seductive details and self-explanation prompts, (c) no seductive details, or (d) no seductive details but self-explanation prompts. Results showed that seductive details hindered learning because of increased extraneous cognitive load, and that focused self-explanation overcame the negative deleterious effect of seductive details through decreased extraneous cognitive load, and therefore improved learning. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed and future research directions are presented.Washington State University, Educational PsychologyBy student request, this dissertation cannot be exposed to search engines and is, therefore, only accessible to Washington State University users