Cognitive Load and Fatigue in Synchronous Online Learning

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session Two
  In Roundtable Session: Research Insights Into Online Learning (Table 11)

Abstract

Video conferencing tools enable audio-visual communication and engagement in real time. The platforms increased in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic across various settings, including higher education, as an essential tool to replicate face-to-face educational interactions. Despite its usefulness in online learning, videoconferencing has prompted conversations around its benefits and challenges with a more recent yet ongoing phenomenon, Zoom fatigue. Predictors of Zoom fatigue have been studied across nonverbal cues and teaching methodologies that culminate in cognitive overload. The Stanford Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale was recently developed during the pandemic and preliminary research on Zoom fatigue was primarily conducted abroad. There has been a growing interest to investigate and measure Zoom fatigue in educational context, college and graduate-level instruction in particular, as online learning is likely to continue to play a crucial role in teaching and learning moving forward. Hence, my research project will examine graduate students' Zoom fatigue, cognitive load, nonverbal mechanisms, perceived difficulty and effort of course topics, camera use, boredom, and perceived instructor enthusiasm in two synchronous online course sections during the Spring 2023 term from the cognitive load perspective.
Keywords: Cognitive Load Theory, Zoom fatigue, nonverbal mechanisms, boredom, instructor enthusiasm

Author

• Mi Jin Park, Graduate Center - CUNY
  Presenting Author