Madsen, J.; Parra, L. C.

Impaired academic performance is often attributed to attentional deficits, but it remains unclear whether these reflect long-term traits or momentary fluctuations in attention. This study investigated how acute attention during engaging educational videos and trait measures of attention influenced test taking performance. Short-term retention was assessed in 152 students across four experiments using short-form educational videos. Behavioral trait measures of inattention, hyperactivity, and working memory capacity were also obtained. Acute attention, measured by EEG during video viewing, was a strong predictor of test scores. In contrast, self-reported trait measures of attention were not significant predictors. Working memory capacity and GPA positively predicted test scores. Inattention traits predicted GPA, suggesting a negative effect on overall academic performance. These results suggest that attentional traits only weakly and indirectly affect student performance. Modifying teaching methods, may help address learning deficits in inattentive students, who seem to have no problem attending to, and retaining the content of short, engaging educational videos.