06/01/2022
By Nayantara Kurpad

The College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Nayantara Kurpad on "What Matters When Lectures Move Online?: Measuring The Impact Of Fluency, Modality, And Feedback On Students’ Metacognitive Judgments And Learning."

Candidate Name: Nayantara Kurpad
Degree: Doctoral degree in Applied Psychology and Prevention Science
Defense Date: Thursday, June 16, 2022
Time: 10 a.m. to noon, Eastern Time
Location: Virtual Meeting via Zoom. Please contact nayantara_kurpad@uml.edu or miko_wilford@uml.edu for a link to attend.

Committee Advisor: Miko M. Wilford., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Committee Members:
Lisa Geraci, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Yan Wang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Brief Abstract:
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many courses were forced to shift online. Recent data on student learning indicate that student engagement suffers when courses are delivered virtually. This could be due to students’ involvement in other activities while they “attend” online lectures (e.g., doing dishes, folding laundry). In three experiments, the impact of various factors that could be influencing online learning in consecutive learning sessions (over different topics) were evaluated—specifically, lecturer fluency, information modality, and feedback were manipulated. Overall, participants reduced their judgments of learning and improved their learning performance on the second learning session relative to the first. Lecturer fluency increased JOLs and learning performance (replicating Wilford et al., 2020). The effects of modality on JOLs and learning performance were mixed, and feedback appeared to be ineffective. While there were no significant main effects of the manipulated variables (i.e., modality or feedback), participants that chose to restudy the materials showed increased learning performance compared to those that chose not to restudy. Therefore, online instructors should incorporate multiple learning and testing sessions, and provide individualized feedback to encourage student engagement and maximize learning performance.