Instructional design consequences of an analogy between evolution by natural selection and human cognitive architecture

Evolution by natural selection may be characterized as a system in which a large store of genetic information will persist indefinitely while it remains coordinated with its environment but will continuously produce small random variations that are tested for environmental effectiveness. In any environment, effective variations will persist while ineffective variations will disappear. Similarly, human cognitive architecture includes a large store of information held in long-term memory that coordinates our cognitive activities. A very limited working memory, tests the effectiveness of small variations to long-term memory with effective variations altering long-term memory while ineffective variations are lost. Both an existing genetic code and information in long-term memory provide a central executive that guides behaviour. Such a central executive is unavailable when an environment alters or when working memory must be used to deal with novel information. A major function of instructional design is to provide the otherwise missing structure of a central executive when dealing with novel information and to reduce that structural support as knowledge accumulates in long-term memory. Cognitive load theory both provides instructional design principles that would be difficult to devise without its particular view of human cognitive architecture and throws further light on that architecture.