COGNITIVE LOAD AS A FACTOR IN THE STRUCTURING OF TECHNICAL MATERIAL

Several cognitive concepts can provide hypotheses concerning appropriate structures for instructional material in mathematics, science, and technology: (a) Schema acquisition is the primary component of skilled problem-solving performance; (b) learning through schema acquisition is interfered with if instructional material misdirects attention and imposes a heavy cognitive load; (c) for these reasons, conventional problem solving can sometimes interfere with learning; and (d) instructional material that requires learners to mentally integrate disparate sources of mutually referring information (e.g., text and diagrams) also interferes with learning by misdirecting attention and imposing a heavy cognitive load. Using mathematics and engineering materials, we found evidence for both the relevant cognitive concepts and the efficacy of alternative instructional materials generated by the concepts. Radical recasting of current instructional formats in most technical areas is called for.