The Effect of Extraneous Cognitive Load on Cognitive Engagement and Germane Cognitive Load of Students: The Effect of Desirable Difficulty

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of extraneous cognitive load on cognitive engagement and germane cognitive load of students: the effect of desirable difficulty. The design of this study was quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test and control group, and the statistical population of the research included female students of high school in Esfahan in the academic year 2021-2022. 30 participants were selected by the available sampling method and assigned randomly to control and experimental groups. To induce extrinsic load, the text's disfluency effect was used. Thus, in the pre-test stage, both groups were given a text with fluent (readable) font to read for 10 minutes. They were then asked to indicate their evaluation of the text by answering the Cognitive Load Questionnaire (Klepsch & Seufert, 2017) and the Cognitive Engagement Subscale (Reeve, 2013). In the post-test, a text parallel to the pre-test text was given to the participants, with the difference that the text font of the experimental group was manipulated to be less readable. Then both groups were asked to answer the cognitive load and cognitive engagement questionnaires. Data were analyzed using MANCOVA. The results indicated a significant difference between experimental and control groups in terms of cognitive engagement and germane load. Therefore, it seems that a certain amount of extraneous load can stimulate a germane cognitive process, by creating cognitive engagement.