Informing: A Cognitive Load Perspective

This study explored the impact of online lectures that were developed using principles of cognitive load theory (CLT) and cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) on health profession students' lecture comprehension, cognitive load, cognitive engagement, and intrinsic motivation in learning. A total of 215 first-year undergraduate students in medical, dentistry, and nutrition programs participated in this pre-post quasi experimental study. The students attended a typical face-to-face lecture on Day-1 of the intervention, followed by a CLT-based online lecture 8 weeks thereafter. Their comprehension of the lecture topics was measured through pre- and post-lecture assessments, and their cognitive load, cognitive engagement, and motivation were measured immediately after each lecture session. The analysis revealed that the CLT-based online lectures promoted the students' comprehension of the lecture content (p < 0.001), self-perceived learning (p < 0.001), engagement toward the learning material, and motivation to learn (p = 0.025). It was also effective at reducing the students' intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads (p < 0.001). Hence, designing online lectures using CLT and CTML principles could be an effective method to promote students' knowledge and comprehension, cognitive engagement, and learning motivation. However, further research is needed to investigate the applicability and impact of CLT-based online lectures in non-health profession disciplines.

In two experiments, the principles of cognitive load theory were applied to the design of alternatives to conventional music instruction hypothesised to facilitate learning. Experiment 1 demonstrated that spatial integration of visual text and musical notation, and dual‐modal delivery of auditory text and musical notation, were superior to the spatially separated placement of the same visual materials, demonstrating the split‐attention and modality effects respectively. In Experiment 2 there were four conditions differentiated by the presence or absence of musical notation and the simultaneous or successive presentation of auditory music, written explanations, and musical notation. Results indicated that the presence of music notation had no effects, but that the simultaneous presentation of either two or three information sources was superior to successive presentation. These results provide further empirical support for the need to consider cognitive load theory when designing instruction in any domain.

Transaction analysis, the process of discerning which accounts are impacted (either increased or decreased) by a given transaction, is a fundamental accounting principle. While proficiency in this concept is vital for introductory accounting students, it poses a significant challenge for many. We addressed this hurdle using Excel and Excel VBA to develop a fully automated Journal Entry Learning Object (JELO) spreadsheet designed to aid first-year accounting students in grasping the intricacies of analyzing business transactions. Grounded in cognitive load theory (CLT), our spreadsheet based JELO provides a user-friendly interface that helps students develop their skills without becoming overwhelmed. Cognitive load theory, pioneered by John Sweller, suggests that learning is optimized when instructional materials reduce unnecessary cognitive load, allowing students to allocate their cognitive resources efficiently toward understanding and mastering the task at hand. CLT distinguishes between three types of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane (Sweller, Ayres, &amp; Kalyuga, 2011). Intrinsic cognitive load refers to the inherent difficulty associated with a specific instructional topic (Sweller, J. 2010). In transaction analysis, the intrinsic load is naturally high due to the complexity of understanding the impact of transactions on various accounts. To manage this, JELO has three tiers of transaction questions. Students are allowed to progress to more complex transactions only after demonstrating proficiency with the lower levels. Extraneous cognitive load is generated by inefficient presentation of information to learners (Paas &amp; Sweller, 2014). JELO minimizes extraneous load through its intuitive and interactive design. By providing clear instructions, a logical interface, and eliminating unnecessary information, JELO ensures that students can focus on the essential aspects of transaction analysis without being distracted by irrelevant information. Germane cognitive load refers to the mental effort required to create schemas and integrate new information into existing knowledge structures (Sweller et al., 2011). JELO enhances germane load by offering scaffolded and immediate feedback. This feedback is designed to reinforce correct responses and guide students through their errors with hints and explanations, facilitating deeper cognitive processing and better schema construction. Our goal was to make skill acquisition enjoyable and, more realistically, to reduce the pain of learning transaction analysis. The JELO offers an alternative to traditional “drill and practice” methods by providing an easy-to-use, interactive learning tool that dynamically adjusts the difficulty of its questions to match the student's skill level. This adaptive learning approach ensures that students are continually challenged just enough to promote learning without becoming overwhelmed. Additionally, JELO's feedback mechanism aligns with CLT principles by providing immediate positive reinforcement and corrective guidance. By doing so, it helps students build confidence and competence in transaction analysis, leading to a more effective and engaging learning experience. By incorporating principles of cognitive load theory, JELO ensures that students are neither under-challenged nor overwhelmed. This careful balancing of students’ overall cognitive load facilitates a more effective learning environment, fostering both proficiency and satisfaction in mastering transaction analysis.

The struggles faced by elder learners suffering from age-related cognitive decline are often overlooked by instructional designers. However, existing educational theories that already inform learning strategy development for other populations should also help establish instructional methods used to help elder learners. In this article, cognitive load theory frames an exploration of proposed means to slow or counteract the effects of age-related cognitive decline in elder learners. Attention is given to the ways in which multimedia learning methods adhering to certain principles of cognitive load theory can increase available working memory capacity. Evidence is provided to show that cognitive load theory-based practices can also facilitate one’s activation of prior knowledge and betters one’s attentional control. Additionally, elder learners benefit from tasks that include worked examples and goal-free problems, whereas conventional, goal-oriented problems impose greater extraneous load on an already taxed working memory. The outcomes of the present analysis can also be applied to stroke victims’ rehabilitation plans and may offer implications for individuals suffering from other brain injuries, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, or dementia-related illnesses.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented and highly threatening, constrained, and confusing social and educational environment, we decided to expand the traditional focus of the extraneous load in Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) acknowledging the psychological environment in which learning occurs. We therefore adapted and implemented principles of the CLT to reduce extraneous load for our students by facilitating their educational activities. Given previous empirical support for the principles of CLT, it was expected that the adoption of these principles might enable our students to cultivate attitudes and skills across multiple domains such as online learning and presentation technologies, implementing and maintaining a “classroom atmosphere” in a virtual environment, participating in discussions among large online groups of students, facilitating group work, providing virtual office hours for students, and proactively planning for upcoming semesters.

This study proposes a theoretical framework for fostering effective human-AI collaborative teaching in the AI era by integrating the foundational principles of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and Affective Events Theory (AET). Within this framework, the roles of learning self-efficacy, learning engagement, and educators’ personalised mentoring as interventions in the framework are justified. Although this study aims to guide important future directions from a holistic perspective, it is limited by a lack of empirical data. Finally, the study concludes by discussing key implications and outlining a future research agenda.

Medical educators must teach effectively in strained clinical environments while meeting residents' growing preference for digital resources. However, there is limited guidance on teaching with digital platforms. In 2021, the authors developed and implemented a two-year Digital Education Track (DET) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's internal medicine residency program. Using the Four Component Instructional Design (4C/ID) model, they created a curriculum that combines foundational and hands-on digital education skills. The program includes a one-week intensive bootcamp and monthly sessions, where residents learn to create various digital teaching products, including podcasts, infographics, tweetorials, and whiteboard animation videos. The curriculum employs scaffolded learning tasks, supportive information, just-in-time guidance, and part-task practice to build complex teaching skills. Five cohorts totaling 29 residents have participated in the DET, with 17 graduates to date. Guided by Kirkpatrick's framework, evaluation emphasized Levels 2-4. At Level 2 (learning), graduated residents reported increased self-efficacy in using digital platforms and applying principles of cognitive load theory to their teaching. At Level 3 (behavior change), residents produced a substantial body of digital scholarship, including 22 podcasts (35,000-84,000 downloads each), 16 social media threads (26,500-542,400 impressions), 25 infographics, and 20 whiteboard animations. Faculty reviewed these resources using the revised METRIQ score, independently determining they were of high caliber (mean scores 2.5-2.9/3 across domains). At Level 4 (results), unsolicited post-publication feedback suggested these resources influenced teaching behaviors and, in some cases, patient care. The DET offers educators a model for scaffolding instructional design for hands-on skills as medical education adapts to technological change, evolving learner needs, and clinical demands. Future work will include tracking long-term outcomes such as career trajectories and sustained teaching effectiveness and integrating explicit instruction on AI tools within each class.

The design principles of cognitive load theory and learning by analogy has independently contributed to our understanding why an instruction will or will not work. In an experimental study involving 97 Year 9 Australian students conducted in regular classrooms, we evaluated the effect of the unguided problem-solving approach, worked examples approach and analogy approach on learning to solve two types of trigonometry problem. These trigonometry problems (sin40° = frac{x}{6} vs. cos50° = frac{14}{x}) exhibited two levels of complexity owing to the location of the pronumeral (numerator vs. denominator). The solution procedure of worked examples provided guidance, whereas the unguided problem-solving was without any guidance. Analogical learning placed emphasis on comparing a pair of isomorphic examples to facilitate transfer. Across the three approaches, solving practice problems contributed towards performance on the post-test. However, the worked examples approach and analogy approach were more efficient than the unguided problem-solving approach for acquiring skills to solve practice problems regardless of their complexity. Therefore, the worked examples approach and analogy approach that emphasizes algebraic transformation skills have the potential to reform instructional efficiency for learning to solve trigonometry problems.

Currently, there is a growing trend in the use of cloud-based services to support education. The importance of these services is that they are publicly available, allowing students to access these distributed resources most transparently. In this work, a model of satisfactory learning measurement is proposed to analyze the benefits, from the students' perspective, of cloud services related to education. A case study performed in a Database Systems course is presented; in this, under-graduate students can remotely manage database systems using cloud services. The benefits of an online access scheme compared to those of traditional database access are measured in terms of usability and the principles of cognitive load theory.

Asynchronous e-learning allows for targeted teaching, particularly advantageous when bedside and didactic education is insufficient. An asynchronous e-learning curriculum has not been studied across multiple centers in the context of a clinical rotation. We hypothesize that an asynchronous e-learning curriculum during the pediatric emergency medicine (EM) rotation improves medical knowledge among residents and students across multiple participating centers. Trainees on pediatric EM rotations at four large pediatric centers from 2012 to 2013 were randomized in a Solomon four-group design. The experimental arms received an asynchronous e-learning curriculum consisting of nine Web-based, interactive, peer-reviewed Flash/HTML5 modules. Postrotation testing and in-training examination (ITE) scores quantified improvements in knowledge. A 2 × 2 analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) tested interaction and main effects, and Pearson's correlation tested associations between module usage, scores, and ITE scores. A total of 256 of 458 participants completed all study elements; 104 had access to asynchronous e-learning modules, and 152 were controls who used the current education standards. No pretest sensitization was found (p = 0.75). Use of asynchronous e-learning modules was associated with an improvement in posttest scores (p < 0.001), from a mean score of 18.45 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 17.92 to 18.98) to 21.30 (95% CI = 20.69 to 21.91), a large effect (partial η(2) = 0.19). Posttest scores correlated with ITE scores (r(2) = 0.14, p < 0.001) among pediatric residents. Asynchronous e-learning is an effective educational tool to improve knowledge in a clinical rotation. Web-based asynchronous e-learning is a promising modality to standardize education among multiple institutions with common curricula, particularly in clinical rotations where scheduling difficulties, seasonality, and variable experiences limit in-hospital learning.

The mechanisms that govern biological evolution and human cognition are analogous, as both follow the same principles of natural information processing systems. In this article, we describe the following five principles that provide an analogy between biological evolution and human cognition: (a) Randomness as Genesis Principle and (b) Borrowing and Reorganizing Principle, which indicate how natural information processing systems obtain information; (c) Narrow Limits of Change Principle and (d) Information Store Principle, which indicate how information is processed and stored; and (e) Environmental Organizing and Linking Principle, which indicate how stored information is used to generate actions appropriate to an environment. In human cognition, these analogs only apply to cognitive processes associated with biologically secondary knowledge, the knowledge typically taught in educational institutions. Based on these five principles, cognitive load theory researchers have provided diverse prescriptions to optimize instructional activities and materials. We conclude by discussing general instructional implications and future research directions based on this analogy.

This study examined the integration of Van Hiele teaching phases and GeoGebra software to enhance comprehension in engineering mathematics among mechanical engineering education students. A quasi-experimental design was employed to compare learning outcomes between an experimental group using this integrated approach and a control group receiving traditional instruction. Structured teaching methods in this context referred to a systematic instructional framework based on the Van Hiele model, which organized learning into progressive phases from basic exposure to advanced conceptual analysis to build a solid cognitive foundation. Meanwhile, dynamic visualisation tools, denoted as interactive software, such as GeoGebra, that allowed students to manipulate and explore mathematical models in real time, thereby transforming abstract concepts into tangible visual experiences. Data were collected using mathematics proficiency tests and were analysed through the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome taxonomy and Cognitive Load Theory principles. The findings revealed that the mean score increase represented the absolute difference between pre-test and post-test averages, with the control group showing a higher raw improvement (23.29%) than the experimental group (16.17%). However, the normalized gain (N-gain), which measured relative learning progression accounting for initial knowledge levels, was greater in the experimental group (48%) compared to the control group (40%). A t-test analysis (p 0.05) confirmed a statistically significant difference, highlighting the advantages of integrating Van Hiele teaching phases with GeoGebra in engineering mathematics education. This study contributed to the development of technology-enhanced learning strategies in mathematics education and recommended that future research explore the scalability and cross-disciplinary applicability of this integrative approach.

Cognitive load theory (CLT) is an instructional design theory which is based on an information processing view of human cognition. Recently, proponents of this theory have claimed that all forms of “minimally-guided instruction” lead to poorer learning compared to direct instruction because they impose irrelevant cognitive load. This article critically examines this claim by reviewing the empirical evidence that it is based on. This review focuses on studies of mathematics learning. This review concludes that there is little evidence to support the strong claim made by cognitive load theory. Theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed. Teori beban kognitif adalah teori perancangan pembelajaran yang didasarkan pada teori pemrosesan informasi tentang kognisi. Belum lama berselang, beberapa ahli teori beban kognitif menyatakan bahwa semua metode pembelajaran yang mengharuskan siswa untuk memecahkan masalah secara mandiri (minimally-guided instruction) akan membawa hasil belajar yang lebih buruk bila dibandingkan metode-metode pengajaran langsung seperti ceramah atau belajar dari contoh soal. Klaim inilah yang diulas secara kritis dalam artikel ini. Untuk mempersempit permasalahan, ulasan ini hanya akan membahas pembelajaran di bidang matematika. Ulasan ini menemukan sedikit bukti yang mendukung klaim yang dikemukakan para ahli teori beban kognitif. Implikasi teoretis dan praktis dari temuan akan dibahas.

In this article, we discuss cognitive load measurement techniques with regard to their contribution to cognitive load theory (CLT). CLT is concerned with the design of instructional methods that efficiently use people's limited cognitive processing capacity to apply acquired knowledge and skills to new situations (i.e., transfer). CLT is based on a cognitive architecture that consists of a limited working memory with partly independent processing units for visual and auditory information, which interacts with an unlimited long-term memory. These structures and functions of human cognitive architecture have been used to design a variety of novel efficient instructional methods. The associated research has shown that measures of cognitive load can reveal important information for CLT that is not necessarily reflected by traditional performance-based measures. Particularly, the combination of performance and cognitive load measures has been identified to constitute a reliable estimate of the mental efficiency of instructional methods. The discussion of previously used cognitive load measurement techniques and their role in the advancement of CLT is followed by a discussion of aspects of CLT that may benefit by measurement of cognitive load. Within the cognitive load framework, we also discuss some promising new techniques.

Improving patient safety during handovers has become a public health priority.1 Over the past decade, a number of best practices have emerged, which, taken together, represent the first generation of...