Share Paper: Human multitasking abilities: Learning tasks vs. performance tasks

  1. Lin Lin, University of North Texas, United States
  2. Tip Robertson, University of North Texas, United States
  3. Jennifer Lee, University of North Texas, United States
Thursday, March 5 11:15 AM-12:15 PM Meeting Room 9

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between people’s familiarity with tasks at hand and their abilities to multitask. A quantitative study with 80 undergraduate students is conducted to investigate the participants’ task performances with tasks of different familiarity levels and under three different multitasking conditions: 1) non-multitasking; 2) multitasking with a video as background; and 3) multitasking with a video as part of tests. The study provides expected and unexpected results, which are discussed in the final paper. Keywords: multitasking, novice, expert, learning task, performance task, new media and technology, cognitive load