Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology A Multicourse, Multisemester Investigation of the Impact of Cognitive Reappraisal and Mindfulness Instruction on Short- and Long-Term Learning in the College Classroom Sarah R. Cavanagh, James M. Lang, Jeffrey L. Birk, Carl E. Fulwiler, and Heather L. Urry Online First Publication, December 5, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/stl0000174 CITATION Cavanagh, S. R., Lang, J. M., Birk, J. L., Fulwiler, C. E., & Urry, H. L. (2019, December 5). A Multicourse, Multisemester Investigation of the Impact of Cognitive Reappraisal and Mindfulness Instruction on Short- and Long-Term Learning in the College Classroom. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/stl0000174 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology © 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 1, No. 999, 000 ISSN: 2332-2101 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/stl0000174 A Multicourse, Multisemester Investigation of the Impact of Cognitive Reappraisal and Mindfulness Instruction on Short- and Long-Term Learning in the College Classroom Sarah R. Cavanagh and James M. Lang Jeffrey L. Birk Assumption College Columbia University Irving Medical Center Carl E. Fulwiler Heather L. Urry University of Massachusetts Medical School Tufts University Emotions impact learning, in part by affecting cognitive resources like attention and working memory. Clinical literature suggests that cognitive reappraisal and mindfulness can benefit emotional experiences. However, evaluations of whether we can leverage these tools to improve student learning in the classroom are limited. We evaluated whether brief training in cognitive reappraisal and mindfulness, compared with an informational control condition, would impact same-day and semester-end learning in 226 undergraduates in art history, mathematics, and economics courses. On each of these intervention days, participants were randomly assigned to one of the three interventions. All students thus completed all three interventions over the course of the semester. At the end of the semester, students completed another assessment which measured class learning of material covered on the intervention days and a variety of control days on which there were no interventions. The interventions did not result in better same-day learning, but students performed better on the final exam items from intervention days, particularly the cognitive reappraisal day, F(2, 139) ϭ 4.495, p ϭ 2 .013, ␩p ϭ .061. Future research should examine the mechanisms by which cognitive reappraisal might influence learning. Keywords: Learning, Emotion, Reappraisal, Mindfulness The college classroom, like life, is permeated (D’Mello & Graesser, 2012; Immordino-Yang & by emotion. Confusion upon the presentation of a Damasio, 2007). Some of these affective states are new concept, frustration with a difficult problem, likely to encourage learning (Cavanagh, 2016), the glow of pleasure as a skill is mastered—these but others, like anxiety, clearly detract from learn- are but a few of the affective states students ex- ing (Götz & Hall, 2013; Moore, McAuley, Allred, perience during their time in the classroom & Ashcraft, 2014). And of course, students are not This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. This work was generously supported by a grant received from X Sarah R. Cavanagh, Department of Psychology and the Davis Educational Foundation, established by Stanton and D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence, Assumption Elisabeth Davis after Stanton Davis’s retirement as chairman of College; James M. Lang, Department of English and Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc. The sponsor had no involvement in D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence, Assumption study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or College; X Jeffrey L. Birk, Department of Medicine, Co- decision to submit the article for publication. lumbia University Irving Medical Center; Carl E. Fulwiler, Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine, Center for dressed to Sarah R. Cavanagh, Department of Psychol- Mindfulness, University of Massachusetts Medical School; ogy, D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence, As- X Heather L. Urry, Department of Psychology, Tufts Uni- sumption College, 500 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA versity. 01609. E-mail: [email protected] 1 2 CAVANAGH, LANG, BIRK, FULWILER, AND URRY solely focused on their work. Affective states re- greater levels of attention, motivation, and lated to their personal lives, other classes, and the memory consolidation, which, in turn, yield bet- buzzing smartphones in their laps can also distract ter learning (and vice versa for states like bore- them. In this multisemester, multidiscipline, ran- dom or anxiety). domized, blind-to-the-instructor, within-subjects, Focusing less on affect and more on the dis- preregistered research study, we evaluated tribution of cognitive resources, cognitive-load whether offering students tools to manage poten- theory (Chandler & Sweller, 1991) argues that tially disruptive affective states would benefit their attention and working memory are limited re- learning. sources, and thus are distributed among several competing demands during the process of learn- Emotions Impact Learning ing. These respective demands are intrinsic (pertaining to the task or skill, related to its Emotions evolved to prepare an organism for complexity and number of elements), extrane- action, to encourage approach of evolutionarily ous (pertaining to processing related to presen- beneficial situations and avoidance of evolu- tation style and/or distractions), and germane tionarily costly situations (Shiota & Kalat, (pertaining to changing knowledge structures, a 2017). Information that is surprising, anoma- requirement for learning). lous, and/or goal relevant evokes emotion and is Huk and Ludwigs (2009) point out, however, particularly important for people to attend to, that freeing up cognitive resources by reducing prioritize processing of, and store for future extraneous load does not guarantee that learners recall—that is, to learn about (Bower, 1992). As will automatically dedicate the extra resources such, emotional information is prioritized by to learning. They may well use their freed-up attentional (P. J. Lang & Davis, 2006) and resources to daydream, to text their friend, or to memory (Kensinger & Schachter, 2008) sys- study notes for an upcoming exam in another tems in the brain, suggesting that teaching prac- class. These authors propose a theoretical tices that tap into the affective domain might framework of augmented cognitive-load theory, yield benefits in learning (Immordino-Yang & which incorporates the additional layer of cog- Gotlieb, 2017). nitive and affective support that encourages the Research by Reinhard Pekrun and colleagues dedication of resources to learning. (Pekrun, Lichtenfeld, Marsh, Murayama, & Combining the control-value and augmented- Goetz. 2017) suggests that positive activating cognitive-load theories, providing students with emotions (e.g., curiosity, pleasure) enhance ac- tools to decrease their negative emotional reac- ademic motivation and achievement, whereas tivity and refocus their attention on their aca- negative deactivating emotions (e.g., boredom, demic goals may decrease the resources ab- hopelessness) interfere with learning. In his sorbed by distracting emotions like anxiety and control-value theory of achievement emotions, direct any freed-up resources to the task of Pekrun (2006) suggested that the best route to learning. If students dedicate more resources to optimizing student motivation and achievement germane demands, this should benefit learning is to facilitate their appraisals of classwork and and yield better academic outcomes.1 assignments as having high levels of both control (autonomy) and value (relevance for per- Cognitive Reappraisal and Mindfulness sonal present, personal future, or societal goals), This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. Impact Emotion and that relationships between emotions and This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. achievement are mediated by changes in moti- If emotions can impact learning in both pos- vation, cognition, and self-regulation. Support- itive and negative ways, giving students some ing the importance of these appraisals for tools to regulate their emotions could poten- achievement, other important work illustrates tially benefit their learning. Emotion regulation the critical role of autonomy (Black & Deci, 2000) and highlights the relevance or utility of the work (Harackiewicz & Hulleman, 2010) in 1 Applying new skills to regulate emotions will also use resources. We estimate that the benefits will be superior to enhancing learning. In other words, maximizing the cost of applying the strategies, but we may be mistaken, control and value appraisals yield affective in which case we would observe either no effect or a states like curiosity and enjoyment, which elicit negative effect on learning. EMOTION LEARNING 3 refers to any process by which a person attempts laboratory, a focused breathing intervention to change their emotions in order to bring their benefited performance

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