Gender Predicts Beliefs and Knowledge about Attention among College Students

Abstract

Misconceptions and insufficient knowledge related to attention and multitasking can negatively influence academic performance. As part of an educational intervention titled Attention Matters! designed to address these issues, 298 college students completed an online module that included the Counterproductive Beliefs Survey (CBS) both before and after module completion. The CBS assessed self-perceptions of multitasking ability and agreement with common fallacies involving memory and attention. Analysis of survey results revealed a significant gender difference, with males having higher CBS scores, corresponding to higher levels of self-perceived multitasking ability and with higher agreement with misconceptions about memory and attention. This gender difference was especially evident in the survey items relating to memory. Correcting counterproductive beliefs may help strengthen study habits and the ability to manage distraction during learning.

Keywords:

• Attention
• college learning
• gender differences
• memory
• multitasking

Notes

1 In this article, we use the term “multitasking” in the everyday sense and not as technical terminology, to denote engaging in more than one task or activity at a time. Formally, toggling between tasks, as in a laboratory paradigm, would be better described as task-switching or dual-task (depending on the exact configuration of the multiple tasks and the timing among them). Our intent is to capture what is commonly meant by students engaging in multiple things at once, as when taking notes in a lecture while also carrying on a text conversation with a friend. We also acknowledge that the term “multitasking” is notoriously difficult to define, even in the context of formal experimental paradigms (Künzell et al. 2018).