Do Associations Between Mind Wandering and Learning from Complex Texts Vary by Assessment Depth and Time?

Abstract

We examined associations between mind wandering – where attention shifts from the task at hand to task-unrelated thoughts – and learning outcomes. Our data consisted of 177 students who self-reported mind wandering while reading five long, connected texts on scientific research methods and completed learning assessments targeting multiple depths of processing (rote, inference, integration) at different timescales (during and after reading each text, after reading all texts, and after a week-long delay). We found that mind wandering negatively predicted measures of factual, text-based (explicit) information and global integration of information across multiple parts of the text, but not measures requiring a local inference on a single sentence. Further, mind wandering only predicted comprehension measures assessed during the reading session and not after a week-long delay. Our findings provide important nuances to the established negative link between mind wandering and learning outcomes, which has predominantly focused on rote comprehension assessed during the learning session itself. Implications for interventions to address mind wandering during learning are discussed.