Lecture Comprehension Pdf
Umbelina Baublitz
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Acute stress has been shown to disrupt cognitive and learning processes. The present study examined the effects of acute stress on mind wandering during a lecture and subsequent lecture comprehension in young adults. Forty participants were randomized to acute stress induction via the Trier Social Stress Test or rest prior to watching a twenty-minute video lecture with embedded mind wandering probes, followed by a lecture comprehension assessment. Stress responses were assessed via heart rate, blood pressure, salivary cortisol, and state anxiety. Individuals exposed to acute stress endorsed greater mind wandering at the first checkpoint and lower lecture comprehension scores. Moreover, state anxiety post stress was positively associated with mind wandering at the first and second checkpoint and negatively associated with lecture comprehension. Only mind wandering at the third checkpoint was negatively correlated with overall lecture comprehension. Taken together, these data suggest that acute stress, mind wandering, and lecture comprehension are inextricably linked.
Understanding a lecture is not simply a matter of attending the lecture and listening. You need to prepare for the lecture by doing some pre-lecture activities; you need to be active during the lecture by listening for the main points and making notes; and you need to do follow-up work after the lecture has finished to consolidate (strengthen) your understanding. Each of these stages is described in more detail below, followed by a summary of the whole process.
It is difficult to understand a topic you do not already know something about. As a result, your lecturers will expect you to prepare for their lectures. In general, this will involve reading about the topic ahead of the lecture, and possibly studying some of the key terms (vocabulary) related to the topic, which can often be quite specialist. It can be useful to try to think of questions you want to be answered during the lecture.
The most important task during a lecture is following the main ideas. Good lecturers use special language signals, called lecture cues, to help with this. Speakers often give unimportant information, including digressions, and it is necessary for you to be aware when your lecturer is doing this. Your lecturers will expect you totake effective notes of the main points, which means using symbols and abbreviations to increase speed, as well as making sure your notes have a clear structure so that you can use them later. You may have questions during a lecture, in which case you should make a note of these to answer later.
When the lecture has finished, your task has not. Your notes may be messy or incomplete. Abbreviations you understand now may be incomprehensible when you return to your notes later. It is therefore important to improve your notes after a lecture, by adding more detail, writing some full words where you have abbreviations, and by discussing with others and comparing what they thought were the main points. If you had any questions during the lecture, you should try to find answers to these.
A language-focused approach to the teaching of reading comprehension aligns with a more accurate view of reading comprehension. It allows teachers to do away with pointless, time-consuming forms of assessment. It encourages school leaders to re-imagine their reading curriculum primarily in terms of the texts to be shared. Most of all, it offers our pupils a more authentic, enriching and effective experience of reading.
Copyright: 2024 Morava et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: HP Western Strategic Support for NSERC SuccessSeed Research Grant 0000052837 The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Students in higher education often face acute and chronic stressors in their everyday lives. Elevated stress levels have been associated with poor cognitive and academic outcomes [1]. Specifically, several studies have suggested acute stress negatively impacts executive function, a higher-order cognitive construct comprised of inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility [2, 3] and memory [4, 5]. Acute stressors activate several physiological and psychological systems including the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal and Sympathetic Adrenal Medullary axes, which release cortisol and catecholamines (e.g., epinephrine, norepinephrine) [6, 7]. Cortisol and catecholamines interact with receptors in brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which support executive function and memory [8, 9]. Importantly, the majority of acute stress and cognition studies utilize standardized lab-based cognitive tasks, however when examining acute stress and learning, it is important to model real-world learning contexts, such as lecture halls [5].
Participants provided informed written consent of a protocol approved by the Health Sciences Research Ethics Board (#121155) at Western University and this study was conducted in accordance with the most recent iteration of the Declaration of Helsinki. We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study.
Participants abstained from exercise and caffeine 3 h prior to lab arrival and food or beverage consumption (except water) for 1 h prior to lab arrival [37]. Participants also abstained from dental work the day prior and brushing teeth for 1 h prior to lab arrival. All study procedures were completed between 12:00 to 6:00 pm to minimize circadian variation in salivary cortisol [38]. Participants were randomly assigned to a Control (n = 20) or Stress (n = 20) condition using the online randomizer tool (random.org). See Fig 1 for a full study schematic.
Upon entry into the lab, participants were seated and filled out the demographic questionnaire, GLTEQ, PSS, STAI-T, and STAI-S. Blood pressure was assessed twice in a seated position and participants were fitted with a heart rate monitor to provide continuous HR measurement. Participants were instructed on how to passively drool and provided their first saliva sample. These baseline assessments took approximately 30 minutes which promoted acclimation to the lab environment prior to the Control or Stress condition [3]. HR, BP, state anxiety, and a saliva sample were collected again prior to either condition. Participants in the Control condition remained in a seated position for 20 minutes in the lab with the experimenter and were not permitted to use technology (i.e., smartphones or laptops) during this time. Participants in the Stress condition were exposed to the TSST in a separate room in the lab.
Immediately following either condition (i.e., Control, Stress), HR, BP, state anxiety, and a saliva sample were collected. Participants were then instructed that: they would watch a twenty- minute video lecture, three prompts would appear during the lecture in which they would need to respond regarding their current mental state, and that a lecture comprehension assessment would follow. Participants were not permitted to take notes during the lecture. Immediately following the lecture, HR, BP, state anxiety, and a saliva sample were collected. Participants were then presented with a paper and pencil lecture comprehension assessment and instructed they had 10 minutes to complete the assessment. Immediately following the lecture comprehension assessment, HR, BP, state anxiety, and a final saliva sample were collected. Participants were then debriefed regarding the true purpose of the study. Study data are available in the Supplementary files, while code for the lecture video with embedded mind wandering prompts is openly available on GitHub ( ).
Stress measures and mind wandering. Point-biserial correlations (Table 3) revealed that STAI-S scores immediately post TSST were significantly positively correlated with mind wandering at the first and second time point (i.e., MW1 and MW2), while cortisol reactivity was significantly positively correlated at only the second time point (i.e., MW2).
Mind wandering and lecture comprehension. Point-biserial correlations (Table 3) revealed only mind wandering at the third time point (i.e., MW3) was significantly negatively correlated with lecture comprehension. Point-biserial correlations (Table 4) revealed mind wandering at the second and third time points (i.e., MW2, MW3) were significantly negatively correlated with lecture comprehension performance on material presented around the MW probes.
The present study examined the effects of acute stress on mind wandering during a video lecture and subsequent lecture comprehension. Individuals exposed to acute stress via the TSST endorsed greater mind wandering at the first checkpoint and lower lecture comprehension scores. Furthermore, state anxiety post TSST was positively associated with mind wandering at the first and second checkpoint and negatively associated with lecture comprehension. Only mind wandering at the third checkpoint was negatively associated with overall lecture comprehension scores, while mind wandering at the second and third checkpoint were negatively associated with lecture comprehension of material presented around the probes. Several issues within these overarching findings warrant commentary.
Regarding acute stress and lecture comprehension, the Stress group demonstrated lower performance than the Control group. This finding is in line with a meta-analysis which found acute stress occurring prior to encoding impaired episodic memory [4]. Notably, several groups [4, 44] have highlighted the interaction between the time course of the stress response and memory processes (e.g., encoding, retrieval) uniquely impact the effects of acute stress on memory. For instance, when examining the effects of stress on encoding, stress-encoding delay (i.e., the delay in minutes between stress onset and encoding) and whether the study items were relevant to the stressor were moderators. A greater stress-encoding delay resulted in impairing effects, particularly at a delay of approximately 22 minutes, as well as when study materials were not relevant to the stressor [4]. In our study, the video lecture was administered approximately 25 minutes post TSST start and the study materials were regarding food-borne illness, which do not pertain to the TSST. Importantly, as the majority of studies examining acute stress and memory utilize standardized memory assessments, our study is the first to provide direct evidence of negative effects of acute stress on memory pertaining to information presented in a video lecture format.
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