Learning about a serious disease: When a personalized message is harmful unless you are happy

Abstract

According to the personalization principle, addressing learners by means of a personalized compared to a nonpersonalized message can foster learning. Interestingly, though, a recent study found that the personalization principle can invert for aversive contents. The present study investigated whether the negative effect of a personalized message for an aversive content can be compensated when learners are in a happy mood. It was hypothesized that the negative effect of a personalized compared to a nonpersonalized message would only be observable for participants in a sad mood, while for participants in a happy mood a personalized message should be beneficial. A 2 × 2 between‐subject design with mood (happy vs. sad) and personalization (personalized vs. nonpersonalized message) was used (N = 125 University students). Mood was experimentally varied prior to learning. Learning outcomes were measured by a retention and a transfer test. Results were essentially in line with the assumption: For participants in the sad mood condition, a negative effect of a personalized message was observable for retention and transfer. For participants in the happy mood condition, a positive effect of personalized message was observable for retention, but no effect for transfer. Note that the manipulation check measure for the mood induction procedure did not detect differences between conditions; this may be due to a shortcoming of the used measure (as indicated by an additional evaluation study). The study emphasizes the importance to consider the inherent emotional content of a topic, such as its aversive nature, since the emotional content of a topic can be a boundary condition for design principles in multimedia learning. The study also highlights the complex interplay of externally induced and inherently arising emotions.

The effectiveness of self: A meta‐analysis of using self‐referential encoding techniques in education

“…Therefore, both neutral and positive self‐referential materials are more likely to match the present self‐schema, leading to improved learning processes and outcomes. However, certain learning materials in education, such as knowledge about severe diseases, may be disregarded as they are less likely to align with the present self‐schema, resulting in limited learning improvement (Kühl & Münzer, 2021; Kühl & Zander, 2017).…”

“…These studies demonstrate the potential utility of incorporating the self in educational contexts. Meanwhile, several researchers, such as Kühl and Münzer (2021) and Sinatra et al (2016), have encountered contradictory results. Interestingly, the findings from these studies even suggest an inverted self‐referencing effect for learning outcomes.…”

Learning with self-generated drawings and the impact of learners’ emotional states

“…In the last decade, based upon the CATLM, research about the influence of emotions and emotional states as well as motivation on multimedia learning has become a topic of major interest – with equivocal research findings (e.g., Um et al, 2012 ; Navratil et al, 2018 ; Kühl et al, 2019 ; Münchow and Bannert, 2019 ; Navratil and Kühl, 2019 ; Kühl and Münzer, 2021 ; Plass and Hovey, 2022 ; for meta-analyses see Brom et al, 2018 ; Wong and Adesope, 2020 ). For instance, results of an influential study by Um et al (2012) showed that learners’ positive emotional state and meaningful learning have a positive relation.…”