Cognitive Load Theory and Its Applications for classroom practices and instructional design

What is Cognitive Load Theory?

John Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory postulates that the capacity of our working memory to process information is finite. What is cognitive load? Cognitive load refers to the amount or quantity of information that our working memory can hold simultaneously. There are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane. Chen et al. described these three types in detail. Cognitive load is intrinsic if the nature of the incoming stimulus incurs it. In other words, instructional interventions cannot alter intrinsic cognitive load because the information’s complexity is intrinsic. Extraneous cognitive load is generated by instructional manipulations. An inappropriate instructional design that requires a considerable amount of working memory resources may impose a heavy mental burden and interfere with learning. Extraneous cognitive load is undesirable and can be controlled by the instructor. Germane cognitive load occurs when working memory resources are engaged in learning via schema acquisition and automation (2009). It also involves developing patterns of thoughts or behavior to organize categories of information (Pande, 2019).

Why overloading students with information is detrimental to successful learning?

First and foremost, let’s define what cognitive overload is. Sweller referred to cognitive overload as a “mental state in which new information exceeds learners’ working memory capacity and consequently impedes information processing.

Although there are two ways in which the capacity of our working memory can be increased—the modality effect and drawing on our prior knowledge to expand the capacity of our working memory—overloading our working memory is detrimental to learning and should be avoided. 

Incorporating Cognitive Load Theory into our teaching-learning practices is essential to our job as educators. How information is conveyed by educators is a critical factor in the achievement of learning goals. Educators need to give students information that can be easily comprehended by them. Therefore, students do not need additional cognitive effort, making learning more difficult. Because the material is so difficult to understand, some students are disinterested in the lesson. In this scenario, teachers might choose to simplify their instructions while maintaining the same level of overall learning.

How do we apply CLT in the classroom?

CLT has been used as a framework for developing materials for complex learning over the past two decades to lower the amount of extraneous cognitive load while simultaneously raising the amount of germane cognitive load. Numerous instructional design principles derived from CLT have been successfully implemented in various learning environments. CLT creates undesirable instructional interventions like split attention and redundancy. The split-attention effect occurs when attention is divided between multiple visual sources. The redundancy effect involves various sources of information, where one source is sufficient for understanding and learning, and the others simply repeat the first source’s information (Sweller 2005).

References

Pande, I. (2019). Cognition Load Theory: Definition, Types, and Application for Learning; cognitiontoday.com. https://cognitiontoday.com/cognitive-load-theory-definition-types-and-applications-for-learning-guest-post/#Guest_Author.

Sweller, J (1993). Some cognitive processes and their consequences for the organization and presentation of information. Australian Journal of Psychology, 45,1-8.