Previous research work has already demonstrated that both the form of teaching as well as different teaching methods directly influence students’ learning experience along with their psychobiological ...responses at the endocrine and autonomic level. Aiming to gain deeper insights into the constitution of the learning experience, this study examined the influence of external factors such as generally perceived life stress and self-efficacy on the immediate learning experience in different learning environments. Therefore, a randomized experimental field study was conducted in which both psychological constructs and physiological data (heart rate variability) were collected from healthy first-year medical students (n = 101) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In an effort to determine the consistency of the effects across various teaching formats, the same content of a practical histology course was carried out in a face-to-face setting as well as in passive and active online teaching. While self-efficacy was a strong predictor for positive course perceptions in all learning conditions (Pearson’s r = 0.41–0.58), generally perceived worries correlated with higher anxiety during passive online learning and face-to-face learning (Pearson’s r = 0.21–0.44), a finding supported by the negative correlation between the level of perceived life demands and enjoyment during the learning unit (Pearson’s r = −0.40–−0.43). Here, we additionally report initial evidence pointing towards the role of reduced general life stress as a resilience factor for the expression of physiological stress parameters in an academic context (small-sized effect; Pearson’s r = 0.18). The data gathered in this study illustrate the relevance of emerging emotional manifestations—either aversive; negative effect or positive; protective effect—for the immediate learning process and thus establish a connection between medical education and the importance of mental health and wellbeing—especially discussed against the background of current social and political challenges in increasingly complex societal structures.
1. Young (4-month-old) and old (20-month-old) rats, maintained under water restriction, were trained to discriminate to obtain a small amount of drinking water as a reward. Each animal had to learn ...to press a lever corresponding to a light that was randomly distributed on the left or right. 2. Introduction of an auditory perturbation ("stress") during the discriminative phase of learning modified the capacity and rate of acquisition in both young and old animals, changes that were correlated with increases in plasma concentrations of epinephrine, norepinephrine and corticosterone. 3. Stress-induced detrimental changes in both discrimination learning and plasma hormones were suppressed by 20 days of oral treatment with an extract of Ginkgo biloba leaves (EGb 761; 50 or 100 mg/kg/day) in both young and old rats, effects that became statistically significant by the third day of learning (time of maximal acquisition rate). 4. EGb 761 treatment was less effective in increasing the percentage of efficient lever presses in old than in young rats, but more effective in decreasing the number of inefficient lever presses and reaction time in the older animals. 5. These results indicate that EGb 761 can facilitate behavioral adaptation despite adverse environmental influences, a property that supports its clinical use in treating cognitive impairment, especially in elderly patients.
An examination of the research literature suggests that the data on the relationship between manifest anxiety and learning has been misread. A more defensible theory appears to be that the persons ...who score as high anxious are those who show disrupted behavior under failure-induced stress, but not necessarily under pain-induced stress; persons who score as low anxious are those who show disruption under pain-induced stress, but not necessarily under failure. This position accounts for most of the conditioning and verbal learning data published to date. (25 ref.)
A study of the relationship between experimentally induced stress and personality factors. 90 Ss who scored on the extremes of a neuroticism inventory practiced a list of 12 consonant nonsense ...syllables under conditions of "shock-incorrect," "shock at random" and no shock. Results showed a large difference between the extreme scoring Ss in the "shock incorrect" condition and a smaller difference for the "shock random" condition, with the high anxiety group doing better. The control condition showed a small consistent difference.
"The present study was concerned with performance in a second task as a function of task pacing and whether the S-R pairs to be relearned were identical to those learned in the first task or were ...required to be re-paired . . . . A significant interaction between these two variables was found. While the simple effects were not statistically significant they did tend to indicate that the stress condition resulted in fewer errors on the unchanged pairs in comparison to nonstress and in comparatively more errors on the changed pairs."
Used dogs in a classical conditioning situation with UCS a shock to paw and CS a tone. "Mean total number of CR's and mean total reciprocal latency measures were found to vary directly with CS ...intensity and to vary inversely, with a single inversion of order, with length of CSUCS overlap." These results are discussed in terms of Hullian and contiguity theory. 23 references.
