Illusion of Progress is Moar Addictive than Cat Pictures

Abstract

We conducted two studies on the effect of visual reward mechanisms for increasing engagement with an online learning material. In the first study, we studied the effect of showing cat pictures as a reward to correct and incorrect answers to multiple choice questions, and in the second study, we created an illusion of progress using a progress bar that showed step-wise increments as students answered to the questions. Our results show the use of cat pictures as a visual reward mechanism does not significantly increase students' engagement with learning materials. At the same time, students who were shown progress bars had a statistically significant increase in the quantity of answers -- on average 88% more answers per day. However, our results also indicate that this effect declines over time, meaning that students catch up to the illusion.