Motivational Influences on Cognitive Load: The Effects of Cognitive Load on Motivation in Multimedia Learning Environments

The authors examined whether an extraneous cognitive load condition adversely affected participants' performance, self-efficacy, and anxiety related to learning about Pearson's correlation. The authors provide a review of the existing literature on cognitive load and numerous motivational constructs to establish a foundation for research examining how extraneous cognitive load condition can possibly affect learners' self-efficacy and anxiety. This study yielded a mixture of significant and non-significant findings regarding the effect of extraneous cognitive load upon motivation and performance. The study results suggested two things. First, the correlation instruction improved participants' self-efficacy. Second, that there were confounds such as processing time and content domain that may have affected the results. This suggests that extraneous cognitive load conditions can still adversely impact motivation and performance, but further research is needed to examine these issues.