Leveling the Playing Field: Temporal Video Segmentation for Individuals with ADHD in Computing Education

2026-07-27

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenges faced by learners with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in asynchronous computing education videos, where high cognitive load and difficulties sustaining attention often lead to suboptimal performance. To mitigate these issues, the authors propose a post-processing video intervention grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles: instructional videos are automatically segmented into single-instruction clips interspersed with fixed-duration pauses to modulate pacing and reduce cognitive load. In a controlled experiment involving 17 ADHD and 10 non-ADHD participants, this approach significantly decreased operational errors and hesitation behaviors among ADHD learners, elevating their task performance to parity with non-ADHD peers and effectively narrowing the learning gap attributable to neurocognitive differences.

Abstract

Individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often face significant barriers in computing education. In asynchronous learning environments, instructional videos can impose high extraneous cognitive load, often relying on assumptions about sustained attention and working memory that do not align with ADHD neurocognitive profiles. In this work, we evaluate a post-hoc video processing intervention that segments instructional content into single-instruction chunks followed by fixed-length pauses to reduce cognitive load. In a within-participants controlled study with 17 individuals with ADHD and 10 without, we find that the intervention has an equalizing effect. Although it improved performance for all participants, gains were larger for those with ADHD, reducing their errors and hesitations to levels comparable to those of participants without ADHD under the same intervention. These results align with the goals of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), by showing that cognitively-aligned, post-hoc instructional video modifications can reduce performance disparities across diverse neurocognitive profiles.

Problem

• ADHD
• computing education
• instructional videos
• cognitive load
• neurocognitive diversity

Innovation

• temporal video segmentation
• cognitive load reduction
• ADHD-inclusive design
• Universal Design for Learning
• post-hoc video processing