🔬 physics

Cognitive Load and Situational Interest in Physics Laboratories: A Comparative Study Across Three Instructional Modalities

This study demonstrates that among inquiry-based, design-based, and game-based instructional modalities for non-STEM physics laboratory students, game-based learning most effectively reduces cognitive load while maximizing situational interest, highlighting the importance of strategically selecting teaching methods to balance mental effort and engagement.

Original authors: Razan Hamed, N. Sanjay Rebello

Published 2026-02-09

📖 4 min read☕ Coffee break read

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Razan Hamed, N. Sanjay Rebello

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine you are trying to learn how to cook a complex meal. You could do it in three different ways:

The "Inquiry" Chef: You are given a blank kitchen and told, "Figure out how to make a soufflé." You have to read, guess, experiment, and figure out the rules yourself.
The "Design" Architect: You are told, "Build a machine that bakes a perfect cookie." You have to sketch, build, break, fix, and rebuild until it works.
The "Game" Player: You are handed a board game where you roll dice, draw cards, and solve cooking puzzles to move your piece toward the finish line.

This paper is a study about which of these three "kitchen styles" works best for students who aren't planning to become professional chefs (non-STEM majors) when they are learning physics. The researchers wanted to know two things:

How hard is the mental work? (Cognitive Load: Is your brain feeling like it's carrying a heavy backpack?)
How much do you enjoy it? (Situational Interest: Are you having fun and wanting to keep going?)

The Setup: Two Different "Kitchens"

The researchers ran two separate experiments, like two different cooking classes:

Mechanics: This is like learning about how things move in the real world (pushing a cart, dropping a ball). It's something you can feel with your body.
Circuits: This is like learning about electricity. You can't see it or touch it easily; it's more abstract and invisible.

In both classes, every student tried all three cooking styles (Inquiry, Design, and Game) one after another. After each session, they filled out a survey to rate how tired their brains felt and how interested they were.

The Results: The "Game" Wins the Popularity Contest

The study found a clear pattern across both classes:

1. The Game-Based Lab (The Board Game)

Brain Load: This was the lightest. Students felt like they were carrying a feather instead of a backpack. The game rules and structure made the hard physics concepts feel easier to digest.
Interest: This was the highest. Students were the most engaged, excited, and interested.
The Takeaway: When the "backpack" is light, the "fun" is high. The game made the learning feel like play, which kept the students' brains fresh and their interest high.

2. The Design-Based Lab (The Roller Coaster/Alarm Clock Project)

Brain Load: This was the heaviest (in the Mechanics class) or second heaviest (in the Circuits class). Students had to juggle many variables at once (safety, cost, physics rules, materials). It was like trying to build a house while also painting the walls and calculating the mortgage.
Interest: This was in the middle. It was more interesting than the pure research style, but the heavy mental work made it a bit exhausting.

3. The Inquiry-Based Lab (The Self-Guided Exploration)

Brain Load: This was very heavy, often the heaviest (especially in the Circuits class). Because students had to figure out the rules themselves without a clear path, their brains had to work overtime to organize the information.
Interest: This was the lowest. When the brain is struggling just to understand the basics, there is less energy left to feel excited or interested.

The Big Picture: The "Backpack" and the "Fun"

The most important finding is a simple trade-off: The heavier the mental backpack, the less fun the activity feels.

In the Mechanics class: The "Design" project (building a roller coaster) was the most mentally exhausting because it required complex system thinking.
In the Circuits class: The "Inquiry" project (figuring out electricity on your own) was the most exhausting because electricity is abstract and hard to visualize without guidance.

However, in both classes, the Game approach consistently kept the mental load low and the interest high.

What This Means for Teachers

The paper concludes that there is no single "best" way to teach physics. Instead, teachers should be like smart packers:

If a topic is very hard and abstract (like electricity), using a Game or a structured Design approach might be better than letting students figure it out entirely on their own (Inquiry), because the "Inquiry" method might overload their brains.
The goal is to find the right mix of methods to keep the "backpack" light enough so students can actually enjoy the journey and learn deeply.

In short: For students new to physics, turning the lesson into a well-designed game or a structured challenge helps their brains work less hard and makes them want to learn more. Letting them struggle alone to figure out the rules often makes their brains tired and their interest fade.

Technical Summary: Cognitive Load and Situational Interest in Physics Laboratories

Problem Statement

Undergraduate physics education for non-STEM majors faces challenges in balancing the cognitive resources required for learning complex disciplinary content with the affective engagement necessary to sustain motivation. While instructional development is pivotal, there is a lack of comparative research examining how different instructional modalities simultaneously impact cognitive load (the mental effort required) and situational interest (immediate affective response) for novice learners. Specifically, prior literature has rarely compared Inquiry-based, Design-based, and Game-based learning modalities side-by-side within the same audience, nor has it systematically analyzed these effects across physics domains with differing levels of abstraction (concrete/embodied vs. abstract/representational).

Methodology

The study employed a comparative experimental design involving two distinct experiments conducted at a large U.S. Midwestern university with sophomore and junior undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory physical science course for future elementary teachers.

Experimental Design

Participants: Two cohorts completed all three laboratory sessions within their respective experiments.
- Experiment 1 (Mechanics): $N = 54$ students.
- Experiment 2 (Electrical Circuits): $N = 47$ students.
Independent Variable: Instructional Modality (Inquiry-based, Design-based, Game-based).
Dependent Variables:
- Intrinsic Cognitive Load (ICL): Measured via a 2-item scale based on the revised Cognitive Load Theory (CLT).
- Extraneous Cognitive Load (ECL): Measured via a 3-item scale.
- Situational Interest (SI): Measured via a modified 3-item scale covering triggered interest, maintained interest, and value attribution.
Procedure:
- Students completed three laboratory sessions per experiment, one for each modality.
- Mechanics Domain: Focused on energy transformations and conservation.
  - Inquiry: Observational and simulation-based exploration of energy conservation.
  - Design: Engineering task to design a safe, fun roller coaster prototype (physical and simulated).
  - Game: A board game requiring calculation of energy quantities to advance tokens.
- Circuits Domain: Focused on mixed series-parallel circuits, Ohm's law, and power.
  - Inquiry: Hands-on and simulation analysis of resistor combinations and bulb brightness.
  - Design: Creating an electrical alarm system for a locker door (physical and simulated).
  - Game: A board game requiring calculation of circuit quantities (current, voltage, resistance, power).
Data Analysis: One-way ANOVA was used to determine statistically significant differences in ICL, ECL, and SI across the three modalities within each experiment.

Key Results

The study found statistically significant differences across all three modalities in both experiments, revealing a consistent inverse relationship between cognitive load and situational interest.

Experiment 1: Mechanics

Cognitive Load:
- ICL: Design-based labs yielded the highest load, followed by Inquiry-based, with Game-based labs showing the lowest load.
- ECL: Design-based labs resulted in the highest load, followed by Inquiry-based, with Game-based labs showing the lowest load.
Situational Interest:
- Game-based labs produced the highest situational interest.
- Design-based labs followed, with Inquiry-based labs showing the lowest interest.

Experiment 2: Circuits

Cognitive Load:
- ICL & ECL: The ranking shifted slightly compared to mechanics. Inquiry-based labs resulted in the highest cognitive load (both intrinsic and extraneous), followed by Design-based. Game-based labs consistently yielded the lowest load.
- Note: The authors attribute the higher load in Inquiry-based circuits to the abstract nature of the domain, which requires integrating multiple interacting elements without the concrete scaffolding found in the design tasks.
Situational Interest:
- The pattern remained consistent with Experiment 1: Game-based labs produced the highest interest, followed by Design-based, with Inquiry-based labs showing the lowest.

Key Contributions

Comparative Framework: This study provides one of the first systematic comparisons of Inquiry, Design, and Game-based modalities specifically for non-STEM physics learners, addressing a gap in Physics Education Research (PER) literature.
Domain-Specific Nuance: The research highlights that the cognitive impact of a modality is not static but interacts with the physics domain. While Game-based learning consistently reduced load, the relative burden of Inquiry vs. Design flipped between the concrete domain (Mechanics) and the abstract domain (Circuits).
Inverse Relationship Validation: The study empirically supports an inverse relationship between cognitive load (both intrinsic and extraneous) and situational interest. Modalities that minimized cognitive demands (Game-based) maximized engagement, while those imposing higher demands (Inquiry/Design) resulted in lower situational interest.
Revised CLT Application: The study applies the revised Cognitive Load Theory framework (focusing on Intrinsic and Extraneous load while excluding Germane load due to conceptual overlap) to laboratory settings, offering a clearer metric for instructional design evaluation.

Significance and Claims

The paper claims that the findings emphasize the value of strategically selecting and combining instructional modalities rather than relying on a single approach. The authors argue that:

Game-based learning effectively reduces cognitive demands and fosters high engagement, making it a strong candidate for introducing complex concepts to novice learners.
Design and Inquiry modalities, while potentially imposing higher cognitive loads, offer different pedagogical benefits (e.g., autonomy, systems thinking) but may require careful scaffolding to prevent cognitive overload, particularly in abstract domains like circuits.
Instructional Fit: Effective physics instruction for non-STEM majors requires aligning the modality with the inherent complexity of the topic (concrete vs. abstract) and the students' cognitive resources.

The study concludes that while no single modality is inherently superior, understanding the trade-off between cognitive load and situational interest allows instructors to make informed decisions to balance mental effort with meaningful engagement. The authors explicitly state that these findings do not suggest one modality is "better" but rather that the inherent complexity of each modality and the specific physics context must guide instructional choices.

Limitations Acknowledged: The authors note that the sequencing of laboratory sessions was not systematically controlled, which may have influenced results, and that prior knowledge was not accounted for. Future work is proposed to address these variables.