There will be an HCI seminar on 21 February 2017, starring Asst Prof Rakefet Ackerman from the University of Haifa. This seminar will take place on Tuesday, February 21​, room 1W 3.30​, from 13:15 to 14:05.

 

TITLE

Learning on screen or on paper? A metacognitive analysis of media effects on reading comprehension and problem solving

ABSTRACT

When examining factors that affect learning, traditional research mostly considered characteristics of the task (e.g., design, time frame, question type) and of learners (e.g., knowledge, working memory, attention span, age).  The lively debate regarding the effect of the media on learning brings to the fore the learning environment as an additional factor that affects the outcomes. Notably, although the findings are mixed and despite using various display technologies, many recent studies still report on lower success when performing tasks on screen than when performing the same tasks on paper. One explanation for the lower success on screen is the effect of the medium on regulation of learning efforts. Regulatory decisions, such as activating in-depth processing of the to-be-studied materials and deciding when to stop learning, are at the focus of the metacognitive research. Only a few studies have directly examined the effects of the reading medium on metacognitive processes. The talk will include a review of a line of research examining factors that underlie medium effects on effort regulation while learning and solving problems.

BIO

Rakefet Ackerman is a tenured Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion, Israel.. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Haifa, and held a Post-Doctoral position at Ben-Gurion University. She studies learning, question answering, and problem solving. Her studies are based on the metacognitive approach, by which subjective assessment of knowledge guides the activities people perform for achieving their goals. Understanding the factors that affect the reliability of this subjective knowledge assessment and the cases that are particularly prone to biases offers a foundation for developing effective work environments and techniques. Her work has been published in leading journals, such as the Journal of Experimental Psychology (General; Learning, Memory, & Cognition; Applied), Cognition, and Computers in Human Behavior. She received grants from the German Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF), Israel Foundation Trustees (IFT), and Israel Science Foundation (ISF) to study metacognitive processes. She is the Israel representative in the “Evolution of reading in the age of digitisation (E-READ)” European Cooperation (COST). Before her graduate studies, Rakefet worked in the software development industry, as a product development manager and system analyst. Rakefet teaches Human Factors Engineering and Metacognition and is the head of the Laboratory of Behavioral Sciences. ​

More info: https://web.iem.technion.ac.il/en/people/userprofile/ackerman.html