ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Can Students Benefit From Prompting During Experimentation? An Investigation of the Benefits of Incremental Scaffolds Compared to Sample Solutions on Cognitive Load and Flow Experience in Biology Lessons
1. Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
2. Faculty of Biology, Universitat Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
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Abstract
Previous studies have shown that incremental scaffolds can support learners during the cognitively demanding task of experimentation, both cognitively and affectively. However, it remains unclear which component of these scaffolds —the prompt or the sample solution—is primarily responsible for their effectiveness. To address this gap, the present study compared incremental scaffolds with embedded prompts to sample solutions without prompting to examine the potential added value of prompting within incremental scaffolds. the prompt as the crucial element within incremental scaffolds. This study investigated the effects of incremental scaffolds versus sample solutions on students' extraneous cognitive load and their flow experience during biology experimentation. A total of 145 high school students (MAge = 12.87 years, SDAge = 0.64 years) participated in two consecutive experiments on animals' thermoregulation strategies. The experimental group worked with incremental scaffolds that initially provided a prompt before revealing the sample solution, whereas the control group received sample solutions only. In both experiments, participants in the experimental group reported significantly higher flow experiences than the control group. Concerning extraneous cognitive load, the groups did not differ in the first experiment, but in the second, extraneous cognitive load was significantly lower in the experimental group. These findings suggest that the combination of prompts and sample solutions within incremental scaffolds is associated with highlight the specific contribution of prompting within incremental scaffolds to reducing cognitive load and enhancing students' perceived learning experience.
Summary
Keywords
cognitiveload, experimentation, Flow, incremental scaffolds, Prompting, Sample solutions
Received
25 November 2025
Accepted
20 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Hülsmann and Wilde. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Marlina Hülsmann
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