Understanding Effort Regulation: Comparing 'Pomodoro' Breaks and Self-Regulated Breaks

Autor/inn/en	Biwer, Felicitas; Wiradhany, Wisnu; oude Egbrink, Mirjam G. A.; de Bruin, Anique B. H.
Titel	Understanding Effort Regulation: Comparing 'Pomodoro' Breaks and Self-Regulated Breaks
Quelle	In: British Journal of Educational Psychology, 93 (2023), S.353-367 (15 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Biwer, Felicitas) ORCID (Wiradhany, Wisnu) ORCID (oude Egbrink, Mirjam G. A.) ORCID (de Bruin, Anique B. H.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0007-0998
DOI	10.1111/bjep.12593
Schlagwörter	Learning Strategies; Time Blocks; Self Management; Short Term Memory; Undergraduate Students; Foreign Countries; Attention Control; Netherlands + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Learning methode; Learning techniques; Lernmethode; Lernstrategie; Selbstmanagement; Kurzzeitgedächtnis; Ausland; Aufmerksamkeitstest; Niederlande
Abstract	Background: During self-study, students need to monitor and regulate mental effort to replete working memory resources and optimize learning results. Taking breaks during self-study could be an effective effort regulation strategy. However, little is known about how breaktaking relates to self-regulated learning. Aims: We investigated the effects of taking systematic or self-regulated breaks on mental effort, task experiences and task completion in real-life study sessions for 1 day. Sample: Eighty-seven bachelor's and master's students from a Dutch University. Methods: Students participated in an online intervention during their self-study. In the self-regulated-break condition (n = 35), students self-decided when to take a break; in the systematic break conditions, students took either a 6-min break after every 24-min study block (systematic-long or 'Pomodoro technique', n = 25) or a 3-min break after every 12-min study block (systematic-short, n = 27). Results: Students had longer study sessions and breaks when self-regulating. This was associated with higher levels of fatigue and distractedness, and lower levels of concentration and motivation compared to those in the systematic conditions. We found no difference between groups in invested mental effort or task completion. Conclusions: Taking pre-determined, systematic breaks during a study session had mood benefits and appeared to have efficiency benefits (i.e., similar task completion in shorter time) over taking self-regulated breaks. Measuring how mental effort dynamically fluctuates over time and how effort spent on the learning task differs from effort spent on regulating break-taking requires further research. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01