Can We Ethically Influence Learning Processes by Technology? Effects of Interruptions on Knowledge Assessment

Abstract The real-time availability of information and the intelligence of information systems have changed the way we deal with information. Current research is primarily concerned with the interplay between internal and external memory, i.e., how much and which forms of cognitively demanding processes we handle internally and when we use external storage media (analog on paper, digital on the computer). This interplay influences how and what we memorize and learn consequently. This study was motivated by the finding that people perform significantly worse in a quiz setting when they obtain content from external sources instead of reading the same content directly in the question system. In our experiments, we wanted to investigate whether interruption by the user interface (ethical appeal or forced time delay) can improve performance in the quiz when users obtain external content. We evaluated the results of 262 valid participants to complete one of three topics at random and then randomly assigned them to one of three possible conditions (ethical appeal, forced time delay, no interruption). The calculated one-way ANOVA shows a statically significant F-value ( $$3.25,\,p &lt; 0.05$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>3.25</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mspace/> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.05</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ), and the separate t-tests show that an ethical appeal ( $$t = 2.29,\,p &lt; 0.05$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>t</mml:mi> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2.29</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mspace/> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.05</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) and an enforced delay ( $$t = 2.08,\,p &lt; 0.05$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>t</mml:mi> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2.08</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mspace/> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.05</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) lead to a significantly higher mean of quiz scores across all three topics. The mean values of the quiz scores of the ethical appeal and the forced time delay are not significantly different. The present results should contribute to further studies of proactive learning interfaces.