Effects of Perceptions of Information Overload, Noise and Environmental Demands on Wellbeing and Academic Attainment
The present research considers components of information overload, which may have a negative impact on wellbeing and academic attainment. 179 university students completed a survey consisting of an information overload scale (IOS) and the wellbeing proces
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Abstract. The present research considers components of information overload, which may have a negative impact on wellbeing and academic attainment. 179 university students completed a survey consisting of an information overload scale (IOS) and the wellbeing process questionnaire. Their academic attainment scores were also added to the database. The IOS scale also included questions relating to noise exposure. Both the noise scores and non-noise IOS scores were associated with greater negative wellbeing and lower positive wellbeing. There were no significant effects of noise or IOS scores on academic attainment. Wellbeing is predicted by a number of factors such as exposure to stressors, negative coping, social support and psychological capital. When these established factors were included in the analyses, the effects of noise and other aspects of IOS could be accounted for by exposure to other stressors and were no longer significant predictors of negative or positive wellbeing. Keywords: Information overload · Noise · Environmental demands · Wellbeing · Attainment
1 Introduction 1.1 Mental Workload There has been considerable recent interest in models and applications of mental workload research [1–3]. Mental workload has been examined using a variety of different methodologies [4, 5], and it has a long history in Psychology and related disciplines [6, 7]. It has been studied in both laboratory settings [8, 9] and the occupational context [10, 11], and a variety of measures of mental workload have been developed [12–17]. These include physiological measures, task measures and self-assessment. Subjective report measures include the Subjective Workload Assessment Technique [4], the NASA Task Load Index [18], and the Workload Profile [19]. Recent research has shown that even single items measuring perceptions of workload are often highly correlated with longer scales and can predict the wellbeing of workers. Other approaches have examined specific aspects of workload, such as time pressure. This is a major component of the Karasek Job Demands scale, which has been shown to predict health and safety outcomes of workers [20]. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Longo and M. C. Leva (Eds.): H-WORKLOAD 2020, CCIS 1318, pp. 87–96, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62302-9_6
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H. Alhenieidi and A. P. Smith
1.2 Effects of Noise One explanation of the negative effects of noise on performance is that the noise acts as an extra source of information that requires extra resources. These resources are then no longer available for the task being performed and performance is impaired [21, 22]. Results from a number of studies [23–27] show that noise increases mental workload. Information overload has been studied extensively, and the aim of the present research was to examine the effects of information overload on the wellbeing and academic attainment of university students. Another specific aim, which forms the basis of the present paper, was to compare information overload due to noise with information overload
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