Paul Chandler

University of Wollongong | UOW · Faculty of Education

The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) is a national, extra-curricular mentoring programme that is closing the educational gap for young Indigenous Australians. So what is AIME doing that is working so well? This article draws on a large-scale classroom ethnography to describe the pedagogies that facilitate the teacher–student relati...

The attempts to train nurses to effectively use information systems have had mixed results. One problem is that training materials are not adequately designed to guide trainees to gradually learn to use a system without experiencing a heavy cognitive load. This is because training design often does not take into consideration a learner's cognitive...

This case study details a collaborative relationship between a university and an Indigenous community organisation. The research partnership, between the University of Wollongong and the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME), has grown from internal university funding to national funding. This is a mutually beneficial partnership for bo...

There is an increasing expectation in tertiary education that students take control of their own learning, experience independence and manage their own cognition. This research sought to investigate techniques for university students to manage their own cognitive load. This paper presents two experiments conducted with postgraduate university stude...

When new information is presented to learners, it must be processed in a severely limited working memory. Learning reduces working memory limitations by enabling the use of schemas, stored in long-term memory, to process information more efficiently. Several instructional techniques have been designed to facilitate schema construction and automatio...

This paper reviews the 16 contributions of the special issue entitled Current Research in Cognitive Load Theory. Each paper is briefly summarized and some critical comments made. The overall collection is then discussed in terms of the positive contributions they make to the field of learning and instruction, and cognitive load theory in particular...

This study seeks to investigate how cognitive load influences knowledge construction and what is the role of layered integrated instructional techniques in facilitating the construction and automation of schemas whilst users are interacting with e-learning tools. Initially the literature on how Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) plays a role in e-learning...

This article presents two longitudinal studies that investigated expertise reversal effects in journal writing. In Experiment 1, students wrote regular journal entries over a whole term. The experimental group received a combination of cognitive and metacognitive prompts. The control group received no prompts. In the first half of the term, the exp...

Dynamic visualisations and hypermedia have the potential to transform how we design instruction and can lead to highly innovative and flexible learning environments. However, their continued success largely depends on the importance placed by designers on the cognitive processes crucial to the learning process. This discussion paper examines the fi...

Empirical studies within a cognitive load framework have determined that for novice learners, worked examples provide appropriate levels of instructional guidance. As learners advance in specific subject domains, worked examples should be gradually replaced by practice problems with limited guidance. This study compared performance, both immediatel...

Based on cognitive load theory, this study investigated the effect of simultaneous written presentations on comprehension of spoken English as a foreign language. Learners' language comprehension was compared while they used 3 instructional formats: listening with auditory materials only, listening with a full, written script, and listening with si...

The development of new technologies allows for endless instructional possibi-lities in terms of dynamic visualizations for learning. The widespread use of PC technology and more recently web based and e-learning instructional platforms has led to highly dynamic and interactive instructional packages that can be easily accessed by many learners simu...

It is frequently assumed that presenting the same material in written and spoken form benefits learning and understanding. The present work provides a theoretical justification based on cognitive load theory, and empirical evidence based on controlled experiments, that this assumption can be incorrect. From a theoretical perspective, it is suggeste...

Learning and understanding of science instructional material was examined from a cognitive load perspective. It was suggested that instructions can be difficult to learn if multiple elements of information need to be simultaneously processed through limited working memory. Diagrams were expected to reduce cognitive load by allowing students to proc...

Based on cognitive load theory, two experiments investigated the conditions under which audiovisual-based instruction may be an effective or an ineffective instructional technique. Results from Experiment 1 indicated that visual with audio presentations were superior to equivalent visual-only presentations. In this experiment, neither the auditory...

This paper investigates interactions between levels of prior knowledge, the complexity of teaching material, and levels of learning from imagination versus conventional study strategies. In the first experiment, we hypothesised that low prior knowledge levels, combined with complex material, would favour students who studied worked examples over th...

Methods of instruction which are intended to facilitate understanding tend to incorporate all the information elements required for understanding in the instructions. Frequently, these types of instructions may overwhelm a learner's limited working memory and hinder learning. In four experiments, a two-phase, isolated-interacting elements learning...

Interactions between levels of learner knowledge in a domain and levels of instructional guidance were investigated. Inexperienced mechanical trade apprentices were presented with either a series of worked examples to study or problems to solve. On subsequent tests, inexperienced trainees benefited most from the worked examples condition, with this...

In 2 experiments, students received 2 presentations of a narrated animation that explained how lightning forms followed by retention and transfer tests. In Experiment 1, learners who were allowed to exercise control over the pace of the narrated animation before a second presentation of the same material at normal speed (part–whole presentation) pe...

Five experiments were conducted to investigate the relative effectiveness of 2 alternative instructional strategies. Students who were engaged in studying worked examples that emphasized understanding and remembering procedures and concepts were compared with students who were engaged in imagining worked examples that emphasized imagining procedure...

Five experiments were conducted to investigate the relative effectiveness of 2 alternative instructional strategies. Students who were engaged in studying worked examples that emphasized understanding and remembering procedures and concepts were compared with students who were engaged in imagining worked examples that emphasized imagining procedure...

Interactions between levels of learner knowledge in a domain and levels of instructional guidance were studied in this investigation. Inexperienced mechanical trade apprentices were presented with one of two alternative instructional designs: a series of worked examples or a less guided exploratory-based environment allowing participants to explore...

In Experiment 1, inexperienced trade apprentices were presented with one of four alternative instructional designs: a diagram with visual text, a diagram with auditory text, a diagram with both visual and auditory text, or the diagram only. An auditory presentation of text proved superior to a visual-only presentation but not when the text was pres...

In Experiment 1, inexperienced trade apprentices were presented with one of four alternative instructional designs: a diagram with visual text, a diagram with auditory text, a diagram with both visual and auditory text, or the diagram only. An auditory presentation of text proved superior to a visual-only presentation but not when the text was pres...

Two experiments investigated alternatives to split-attention instructional designs. It was assumed that because a learner has a limited working memory capacity, any increase in cognitive resources required to process split-attention materials decreases resources available for learning. Using computer-based instructional material consisting of diagr...

Two experiments investigated alternatives to split-attention instructional designs. It was assumed that because a learner has a limited working memory capacity, any increase in cognitive resources required to process split-attention materials decreases resources available for learning. Using computer-based instructional material consisting of diagr...

Cognitive load theory assumes that information should be structured to eliminate any avoidable load on working memory in order to enhance learning. We hypothesized that the appropriate type of structure may depend on the learner's level of expertise. Less expert learners using a diagram might require the diagram to be physically integrated with rel...

It is hypothesized that instructional materials that use dual-mode presentation techniques (e.g., auditory text and visual diagrams) can result in superior learning to equivalent, single-modality formats (e.g., visual text and visual diagrams). This modality effect may be attributed to an effective expansion of working memory. The authors explore t...

Advances in our knowledge of the structure of working memory suggest that under some circumstances, effectively more processing capacity is available to learners if instructional materials use multiple information modes (e.g. auditory and visual) instead of equivalent single mode formats. This paper examined this modality effect from a cognitive lo...

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There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that many traditional instructional techniques may unnecessarily overload limited working memory and impede learning. Based on cognitive load theory, it was hypothesised that instructional design only takes on a crucial role when there is a high level of interaction between learning elements resulting...

The experiments reported in this article flow from the following assumptions concerning our cognitive processes: (a) Schema acquisition and automation are major learning mechanisms when dealing with higher cognitive activities and are designed to circumvent our limited working memories and emphasize our highly effective long-term memories. (b) A li...

. Cognitive load theory suggests that many conventional instructional formats are ineffective as they involve extraneous cognitive activities, which interfere with learning. The split-attention effect provides one example of the consequences of inappropriate cognitive activities caused by poor instructional design. Learners are often forced to spli...

Cognitive load theory suggests that effective instructional material facilitates learning by directing cognitive resources toward activities that are relevant to learning rather than toward preliminaries to learning. One example of ineffective instruction occurs if learners unnecessarily are required to mentally integrate disparate sources of mutua...

Dixon (1991) and Goldman (1991) have provided thoughtful commentaries on Chandler and Sweller (1991). The general issue they raise concerns the scientific procedures we should use when conducting research in cognition and instruction. It is an issue of great importance, and we welcome the opportunity provided by their criticisms to discuss the tech...

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...

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...

This article reviews research literature in the area of cognitive psychology which is relevant to training for transfer of skills. Particular attention is given to the role of models, schema or principles in transfer Research throwing light on the way in which examples facilitate schema acquisition is summarized, and the application of schema and p...

Learning and understanding of science instructional material was examined from a cognitive load perspective. It was suggested that instructions can be difficult to learn if multiple elements of information need to be simultaneously processed through limited working memory. Diagrams were expected to reduce cognitive load by allowing students to proc...