Short vs. Long: Cognitive Load, Retention and Changing Class Structures

Abstract

University class structure is changing. To accommodate working students, programmes are increasing their offerings of long night classes – some lasting as long as six hours. While these long classes may be more convenient for students, they have unintended consequences as a result of cognitive load (Van Merrienboer and Sweller, 2005). Using a panel of 124 students (372 observations) and a differencing approach that controls for student characteristics, we show that long classes reduce student exam performance by approximately one-half letter grade (significant at the 5% level).

Keywords: Cognitive Load, Class Structure, Retention

JEL Classification: A22, A23, A20