Language effects on mental effort and load: MEL-TS scale validation

Research project “Language effects on mental effort and load: MEL-TS scale validation” aims to address discrepancies in cognitive demand assessment across languages, specifically focusing on two distinct aspects: mental effort (intentional cognitive investment) and mental load (passively perceived demands). The goal is to develop a translingual cognitive demand scale that enables reliable comparisons across self-regulated learning contexts globally. This innovative tool will bridge linguistic and cultural gaps in understanding these constructs, utilizing a mixed-methods approach to validate scales in English, German, Dutch, French, Chinese, Spanish, and Russian.

The interdisciplinary team mainly from the DSI Community Education combines expertise from educational technology, cognitive psychology, and linguistics, as well as research from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds ensuring the scale is both conceptually accurate and culturally resonant. The validation procedure followed multiple steps. Through bilingual interviews, item translations, and quantitative experiments (using Prolific for data collection across languages), the English, German, Chinese scales’ content, criterion, and convergent validity, have already been validated. The requested funding will support this rigorous validation process, allowing to validate Dutch, French, Spanish, and Russian scales and make all scales available for international research in 2025. The MEL-TS will fill a crucial gap in self-regulated learning research, offering a standardized, culturally sensitive tool to advance global educational studies.