Complexity, Cognitive Regulation, and Understanding of a Complex Science System

• In Event: Roundtable Session 122
  In Roundtable Session: Instructional Technology SIG: Design and Evaluation of Games and Simulations

Abstract

A cross-legged analysis was conducted to examine (a) the relationship between students’ understanding of complex systems and their regulation of cognition, and (b) students’ change of cognitive regulation between two tasks with different complexity. Seventy-three high school students learned ecological concepts through completing two inquiry tasks with different complexity. The results suggested that the relationship between understanding of complex systems and cognitive regulation was reciprocal. In addition, students who could regulate their cognition in a simple task could also regulate their cognition in a more complex task. However, their cognitive regulation scores decreased when the task complexity increased. This finding suggested that task complexity had an impact on students’ cognitive regulation.

Authors

• Victor Law, University of New Mexico

• Deniz Eseryel, University of Oklahoma