Target Group

This intervention plan is intended mainly for students in higher education, specifically those in college. However, this also attempts to account for assistance to be rendered toward college professors, as they are the main partners to students in the setting of online classes. It focuses directly on delivering a proposed intervention plan for all college professors currently working online to teach college students of all year levels. Other persons involved are school administrators, educational researchers, and other faculty necessary to the training, supervision, support, and sustained connection between the students and their professors. This includes proposed solutions aimed at encouraging the participation of the households in which students may live within and the involvement of experts and professionals specializing in online education or blended education or other alternative educational approaches that are related to the matter of online education. It is important that the plan includes experienced students, professors, and other involved persons as they will be necessary to a significant number of solutions included in the plan. 

The plan has established expectations that this will benefit the students and all other persons included. However, while the plan expects that students will be able to continue their studies with lesser negative influence from the harm caused by impaired cognition, maintain and improve their ability to pay attention, maintain and improve their perception, adapt to a new type of education, and reorganize themselves to a new way of life during the COVID-19 pandemic, it expects also that significantly negative consequences are likely to occur. 

That is, professors may not be friendly or willing to adapt to the proposed solutions this plan has produced. Students may also be unwilling or unable to proceed with what the plan expects of them. Experts who are expected to be involved may also be unable or unwilling to assist due to various reasons. Educational researchers may not consider this plan to be beneficial to all parties due to the demands of time made by the plan as well as the demands placed on all other involved persons. Administrators may also raise concerns about cost or other issues with the implementation or even testing of any solution included in the plan. The plan may also require households or students themselves, not excluding professors and other related faculty, to consider additional costs or responsibilities. And it may also cause some significant changes that are unwanted to the systems necessary for the students and professors and other persons involved.

Components of Proposed Intervention

Feifer (2020) stated in an article that he created that “people don’t like being told what to do.” He also mentioned the concept of “reactance”. And as mentioned in a study by Steindl et al. (2015) Reactance is the desire to reclaim liberty after it has been lost or threatened. It drives individuals to attempt resistance against the influence of other people. And sometimes because of this, one way people act against others is to do the opposite of what they were influenced to do or to avoid doing them in any other way possible. This is also one reason why this adds to the difficulty of assisting students who are attending online courses in the Philippines.

However, this is not the only reason why this adds to the difficulty of the students. As discussed earlier in the paper, other reasons were examined for later consideration for resolution in this plan. The components of this proposed intervention plan are as follows:

The continued analysis of problems, issues, and concerns of students mainly and thoroughly by educational researchers and other persons involved for the express purpose of determining if there are more cognitive issues which were not yet explored by previous studies. This also calls for a highly systematic review of all related literature and works conducted by researchers and other experts in the previous years firstly on the issues and problems previously encountered so that it may contribute to the effectiveness of the analysis. This component should then produce a fairly large dataset for interpretation and further examination until a much larger and extensive review is ultimately constructed. It is possible that this component may take a significant amount of time, possibly taking at least more than a year of additional study while the other components of the plan are implemented.

The re-orientation and re-adjustment of students from traditional instruction to digital instruction or other alternatives like blended learning. This is a program that details the construction and implementation of a user-friendly tutorial for students concerning what software they will be using, what websites they shall be offered for use whenever they must go online, and what other things they can do to easily manipulate and understand what they are doing to continue learning online as well as they learned offline. However, this program also demands that students overcome their worries concerning online education or the alternatives related to it through their participation in this program, which includes conferences which are aimed at deconstructing as much of their worries and reassuring them that they can and will adapt, adjust, and orient themselves to this new method of learning. Unfamiliarity and hostility, as well as skepticism, toward online classes will be acted upon by "seasoned" students and professors who have already spent a significant amount of time and experience with online classes or the alternatives. This should occur as early as possible after students enroll for online classes or the alternatives. And this component should also consider the provision of necessary software, other applications, and hardware demanded by students for their continued involvement in their studies, especially computers and stable internet.

The reconstruction of routines and the restabilization of a setting for learning with minimum disturbances for the students is an important component that details the urgent and rapid establishment of classrooms. This component demands administrators, professors, and other persons involved to spend a significant amount of time, supplies, and other necessities on ensuring students are able to transition to this new type of learning through encouraging them to maintain or reconsider their traditional practices as students; that is, for example, they must act like they are preparing to attend school. This part of the plan is dependent, mainly, on the students as they are required to not only set aside a part of their living space strictly for learning and attending their classes but also to ensure that their daily routine is exactly, if not almost exactly, like their routine before they transitioned to online classes or the alternatives. This should result in the students being able to feel motivated, think they really are going to school despite only having to simply come online or fetch modules from their respective campuses.

The implementation of mandatory rest periods and the consideration for more flexible goals and deadlines. This component is produced at a larger scale as it demands that the educational system be reformed to allow more time to be spent per educational year for the express purpose of easing the stress on both students and their professors and for the more proper performance of others involved in the plan. Basically, this details the necessity of students to take more breaks regularly on school days, to have uninterrupted rest days when they are not attending classes according to their schedules, and to have more freedom to address more important concerns in the household or else go beyond the boundaries of school. Professors also will have to adjust so students will be able to meet deadlines with lesser penalties for tardiness. Professors also will have to be more flexible in the setting of goals, and so will students, and both groups will have to coordinate with each other regarding the accomplishment or postponement of these goals. Administrators are also encouraged to consider reforming their own systems so that this component may be implemented properly. This also may encourage educational researchers to invest significant resources into studying this type of change. Additionally, this should also allow other experts and persons involved to more thoroughly establish the necessary infrastructure and communication networks for students to utilize for their benefit mainly. This can take a significant amount of time to accomplish but this should allow all involved to experience less stress and fewer issues regarding their cognitive performances.

The reformation of curriculums and other educational workloads for both students and professors. This details the removal of unnecessary subjects, the retraining of professors, the reduction of lecture and presentation times, the reduced significance of exams, the removal or readjustment of homework, the strategic adjustment to the schedules of projects, the reconsideration of collaborative tasks, and the utilization of written reflections and other written tasks as well as the reduced utilization of quizzes. A strictly and highly uniform code of conduct should be established for professors and students, just as a more flexible readjustment of school systems for a more practical opportunity for students to learn at their own pace without too many consequences set against them. Professors should also learn to utilize video recordings over synchronized lectures and presentations. A stronger emphasis on more individualized projects is to be considered to discourage the costs of directing students to invest their time and effort in more wasteful and difficult group work. This component of the plan should take at least under a year to plan and implement reforms within schools.

The utilization of workshops conducted by "seasoned" professors and students as well as by more experienced experts of online education and its alternatives for the express purpose of training novice students and professors. This component is a necessity as it demands those new to online education and its alternatives to learn from their more experienced peers. This should contribute to the ease of retraining and readjustment not only of students but also of professors and other persons involved. This component also demands that a careful consideration of lessons from other schools and educational systems and institutions that experienced online education and its alternatives be included in the workshops and in the large necessity for schools in the country to not only better prepare for the transition to online education or its alternatives but to reinforce whatever existing infrastructure is in place.

The creation of joint assemblies of professors with experts in online education, its alternatives, and the necessary equipment utilized in such fields. These assemblies, especially interdisciplinary conferences and cross-educational seminars, are important to the resolution of any gaps between professionals in education and professionals in other fields. This also encourages the coordination of experts, the improvement of learning resources and equipment, the better development of software necessary to education, and the stimulation of new research in the context of newer learning methods.

The encouragement of more open learning through a wider access to scientific and educational materials online and the discouraging of cheating and plagiarism through the reformation of databases, journals, and other networks frequently used by schools, students, and faculty. 

Framework and Summary

Since college students of today find it hard to acknowledge how flexible learning works and to survive, it seems more likely that they’re stuck on the problem or the initial state of being. The initial state is the occurrence of a certain problem with several conditions (Waldrop, 1988; Jones, 2002). Therefore, college students who are currently enrolled and are having difficulties in managing themselves due to the stress of online classes are an example of an initial state. Allan Newel and Huber A. Simon used the term initial state, intermediate state, and goal state to emphasize how problems are solved with the use of their approach (Newell & Simon, 1972). The Newell-Simon approach stressed that they must look deeply into the problem. In this case, college students must be mindful of the conditions of the problem (Ohlsson, 2012; Dunbar, 1998); they have to pass through the initial state in the pursuit of the goal state. So what are these conditions? The majority of students have a short attention span (Bradbury, 2016), some students have memory-encoding deficits (Mirandola et al., 2011; Zhang, 2017), and college students perceive online classes as difficult (Nambiar, 2020; Fish & Snodgrass, 2020), and to name a few. These problems require immediate resolutions which are obtained in the goal state. The Newell-Simon Approach suggests coming up with various ways of solving the problem, treating it as a sequence of choices; this is the intermediate state (Veale, 2016; Newell & Simon, 1972). If college students are able to transpire unique strategies from mental imagery, attention, memories, perceptions, etc., then perhaps it is possible for the college students to create categorically clustered sub-goals. Afterwards, college students will test those sequences one step at a time; this is means-end analysis. By doing this, the probability of reaching the goal state is possible. College students can opt to use operators to catalyze the use of sub-goals; college students can ask for help with their colleagues, the use of online databases, etc. In conclusion, by using the Newell-Simon Approach, it will be easier for college students to navigate the unfamiliar problem like the implementation of flexible learning and generate a myriad of solutions to solve cognitive function crises.

A more recent study in 2018 (Karkar-Esperat, 2018) suggested otherwise, that students had to deal with being isolated, the lack of experience on the part of the professors, and the lack or loss of motivation to work on their studies. While they did say that they were able to become more flexible as they studied, also mentioning the convenience of online learning as a positive, the study did emphasize early on that technology was going to be a more significant part of the lives of students. Yet, it also said that it would depend on where the students came from, as those that came from poorer backgrounds or from other countries that didn't see an improvement in the use of technology in their educational systems would not likely have a great experience with online classes.

A study by Varao-Sousa (2015) was about students' memory performance and mind wandering, and how  different lecture formats impact one's learning experience. In the study, two lecture formats were tested - a live in-class lecture and a pre-recorded video presentation. The results of the study were that the students' memory performance was significantly higher in the live session compared to the video session. It suggests that the students, concerning their acquisition and retention of the lecture information, benefitted from having the lecture delivered by a professor who was physically present in the classroom, A reason why there was a significantly better memory performance in the live lecture was because it was in an in-person, real world setting, and because the lecture materials were handed to their students physically. Another reason would be the students' interest in the lecture has a direct relationship with their memory performance which was reinforced by being in the very presence of their professor. Another study by Comighud (2020) states that "the extent of students’ perception on factors contributing to memory retention is 'high' in  terms  of  (a)  motivational  practices  and  experiences,  (b)  goal  setting  and accomplishment, and (c) personalized learning. Likewise, it is “very high” in terms of (a)  teaching strategies and learning activities and (b) educational resources and learning devices."

One possible adverse consequence called “cognitive overload” effect was noted (Bawden & Robinson, 2009). This term denotes the mixture of an ever-expanding volume of data to be processed. Because of constant interruptions, multitasking requests, and demanding decisions, people are diverted from their flow of thought. There is also the concept of “information overload” that extends the notion of cognitive overload which is the difficulty of a person to take in information because of a surplus of information.

Exposure to a huge amount of information has broader implications that is also linked to cognitive overload (Bawden & Robinson, 2009). These can negatively affect cognitive processing and decision-making capabilities. According to Mayer and Moreno (2003), cognitive overload refers to a condition when a task's processing demands surpass the brain's ability.

Several cognitive factors have different roles that facilitate learning and other important aspects of human function. People pay attention to things that have the potential to improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Attention is an active, voluntary mental process that uses gathered information from external cues, adding it up to the vast amount of information retrieved by senses, stored memories, and other neuropsychological processes (Posner et al., 2004; Tomlin & Villa, 1994). It is also used in daily life and greater social functions. Perception allows attention to work better. For example, top-down processing occurs as perceptual behavior, when a person stores information from discrete or unusual events through their consciousness, while bottom-up processing occurs when they expose themselves to different entities that are not familiar to them. Individuals are capable of producing preconceived notions of every stimulus they encounter because, in every situation, they have established prototypes for them (Lakoff, 1999; Geeraerts, 2006). This prototypicality makes it easier for them to process and analyze exemplars due to this type of processing, which is now top-down. Individuals pay attention to something familiar that was stored from their long-term memory; thus, it is no surprise that they identify and describe objects that were kept in their parietal and temporal cortex more rapidly. It also allows them to create egocentric and allocentric representations, causing consideration for spreading activation due to how that specific process primes memories (Crestani, 1997). This augments the ability of individuals to address these things. These serve as their references (Newell & Simon, 1972) for processing information and solving analogical problems for unforeseen circumstances they have not encountered or exemplars that are not the same as prototypes.

Attention and perception are only two out of several factors important to human cognition. Other functions such as mental imagery are some of the most important facets of human life because it assists them in the attenuation of stimulus, especially when there is an abundance of it, so they could perform more important tasks without any unnecessary degradation in their cognition (Pashler, 2016; Ocasio, 2011; Kleinke, 1978; Knoblich et al., 2006; Kosslyn et al., 1995). However, humans cannot use all of these cognitive functions to deal with everything at once. A person cannot be aware of all the factors present in their surroundings. If a person tries to pay attention to all stimuli, they tend to have difficulty processing all the information. In the case of students in college, paying full attention in lectures or classes is not always possible because most students state that it is difficult to pay attention for prolonged periods (Bunce et al., 2010; Lewis & Sugai, 1996). It seems that students in the present are burdened by many responsibilities and factors like household chores, heavy academic requirements, and personal health maintenance. It is more likely that they would suffer from divided attention because of these factors(Miller, 1982; Anderson et al., 1998). It tends to degrade the consistency of their work (Kane & Engle, 2000) and their motivation and attention (Lang, 1995).

Presently, Filipino students have to adjust to digital education due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that has seriously affected education in the country. Blended or flexible learning is an alternative educational approach offered by the DepED and CHED as a preferred means of delivering the educational materials and opportunities to Filipino students amidst the pandemic. Blended learning utilizes a number of the same aspects present in traditional face-to-face classes, but the delivery of information between students and their professors is mainly through real-time interaction over the internet or some other connection. Both DepED and CHED underscored that the implementation of this new educational approach would be practical and safe; however, their assertion concerning the alternative approach for learning during this pandemic has little to no data-driven basis (Magsambol, 2020; Lalu, 2020) to support their claims. It then seems that both government bodies have dismissed or disregarded concerns regarding the mental health impact of the implementation of their 'distance' learning on the students (Rajkumar, 2020; Schulte-Körne, 2016; Ong Ki, 2020; Letigio, 2020), possibly adding to their current burdens, impairing their interest in classes, possibly causing a negative influence on their ability to remain or become positive about their education in terms of attaining their needs or securing their future (Gormley et al., 2012; Blair & Hoy, 2012). Without evidence, such as recent and peer-reviewed research, it is difficult for them to support their claims. This could lead to harmful inconsistencies that could affect the attention span of students and cause other cognitive issues to worsen (Leber, 1996; McCoy, 2016; Elam et al., 2007).

Several months have passed after the implementation of online learning. Students still report difficulties in paying attention to their online classes, as well as other issues in thinking. They are significantly affected by this situation because they had to adjust to this new type of learning (Tria, 2020). Therefore, it is important for students to rapidly adapt to these factors while they are participating in online classes. Studying the variety of cognitive issues that have emerged among the students may be vital to exploring how it may differ from the usual set of issues students have as they are engaged in the traditional type of learning.

This paper explores the causes of significant differences in students’ cognitive functions. There is a satisfactory disposition in the paper regarding the situation of the students concerning their issues as classes have shifted online. Cognitive psychological concepts, models, and factors are utilized in the study. It is hypothesized that the students’ issues are certainly related to their attention, perception, and other functions and factors important to their overall cognition. Therefore, there is a significant effect on their cognition. Ultimately, an intervention plan with solutions designed to address the main problem is included.