The effects of response modes and cues on language learning, cognitive load and self-efficacy beliefs in web-based learning

An experiment was conducted to examine how different response modes for practice questions and the presence or absence of cues influenced students' self-efficacy beliefs, perceived cognitive load, and performance in language re- call and recognition tasks. One hundred fifty-seven 6th grade students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: 1) MC (multiple-choice only), 2) MC-C (multiple-choice with cues), 3) CR (constructed-responses only), or 4) CR-C (constructed-responses with cues). The results indicated that students who practiced with constructed-response questions performed better in recalling and recognizing English vocabulary, and reported higher self-efficacy beliefs than those who practiced with multiple-choice questions. This finding adds to our knowledge that constructed-response questions might have helped to increase the students' confidence in learning the materials. The findings also indicated that the presence of cues improved students' per-formance in recall and recognition tasks, and increased their self-efficacy toward learning the materials. In addition, the study extends our understanding about the influence of different response modes and cues on students' perceived cognitive load in web-based language learning.