Interdisciplinary Insights: Contrasting STEM and Non-STEM Perspectives in Participatory Design Experiments

Mobile learning is a concept that is not very new to learners, especially for those who have experienced online learning. Issues faced by mobile learners, such as small screen size and bad user interface design, are among the factors that can increase the learner's cognitive load, particularly the extraneous load. This study examines the significant factors that affect STEM and non-STEM users' extraneous load when using mobile learning applications through participatory design. First, the selected learners were required to do a basic task on the mobile learning application. Then the learners were required to answer NASA-TLX rating and a customized questionnaire to measure their cognitive and extraneous load, respectively. From the experiment it can be seen that non-STEM learners are having higher extraneous load compared to STEM learners in four out of six criteria identified. These findings are crucial in understanding the main user interface design factors that affect the learner's cognitive load. This study presents the significant results on the mobile learning user interface design factors that affect STEM and non-STEM learners. These results can be used as guide in designing user interface for mobile learning applications for subjects specified for STEM and non-STEM learners.