John Sweller's research while affiliated with University of South Wales and other places
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Publications (246)
The interleaving effect indicates that students learn better from multiple areas that are interleaved rather than blocked. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the effect is because interleaving facilitates comparisons between areas and is a variation of the variability effect that increases intrinsic cognitive load. Experiment 1 used an inte...
Cognitive load theory has been in development since the 1980s. Much of the impetus for that development has come from firstly, replication failures using randomised controlled trials and secondly, from the incorporation of other theories into cognitive load theory. Both have led to theory expansion. The immediate cause of the so-called “replication...
Educational researchers have been confronted with a multitude of definitions of task complexity and a lack of consensus on how to measure it. Using a cognitive load theory-based perspective, we argue that the task complexity that learners experience is based on element interactivity. Element interactivity can be determined by simultaneously conside...
Background:
The present Special Issue contains 9 papers exploring novel cognitive load theory research questions.
Aim:
To provide a discussion of the 9 articles in this Special Issue of the Journal and to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the papers and indicate opportunities for future studies.
Procedure:
Briefly summarizes cognitive...
Background: Collaborative learning is a widely used approach where students gather in small groups to solve problems and develop skills. However, grouping students is not always effective, and it may be necessary to provide task-specific collaborative experiences to optimize their interactions for subsequent learning tasks.
Aims: To test this hypo...
Cognitive load theory was devised for conditions under which people must deal with large amounts of interrelated information, and hence it has implications for both training and practice. This chapter discusses the cognitive architecture that underlies the theory and some of its consequent general design guidelines before applying it to medical edu...
Sana and colleagues (2022) have raised a number of challenges regarding the opera-tionalisation of constructs and selection of articles to Chen et al.'s (Educational Psychology Review 33:1499-1522, 2021) suggestion that resting from cognitive activity could possibly allow for working memory recovery and so explain some of the data on the spacing ef...
The effects of increasing interactions between learners and digitally presented subject matter were investigated in Experiment 1 while increasing interactions via a pedagogical agent were investigated in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, we compared an E-learning system with and without interactive animation to teach software applications to novice us...
There is a considerable gap between many of the findings from educational psychology research and educational practice. This gap is especially notable in the field of science education. In this article, the implications of three categories of research and their findings for science educational policy in the USA and other jurisdictions were reviewed...
When dealing with instructional information, working memory can be divided into auditory and visual processors. The capacity limits of each processor are a major impediment when students are required to learn new material. Nevertheless, there is one strategy that can effectively expand working memory capacity by using the partially independent stat...
Digital and online learning is more prevalent than ever, making multimedia learning a primary objective for many instructors. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning examines cutting-edge research to guide creative teaching methods in online classrooms and training. Recognized as the field's major reference work, this research-based handbook...
Instructional information can be categorised as being either transient or permanent. Spoken information or videos provide examples of transient information, while written information or static graphics provide examples of permanent information. The major characteristic of transient information is that current information, once presented, disappears...
Cognitive load theory is an instructional design theory based on our knowledge of human cognitive architecture and evolutionary educational psychology. The theory assumes that curriculum areas covered in educational institutions are concerned with domain-specific, biologically secondary information that we have not specifically evolved to acquire r...
Background:
It is frequently implicitly assumed that advantages in language acquisition when learning content through a second language exceed the disadvantages of reduced content acquisition.
Aims:
Based on cognitive load theory, that assumption was tested experimentally. The theory is concerned with techniques for reducing extraneous working m...
When novice users try to learn to use a software application that includes a variety of high element interactivity tools, the complex structure of the software can increase cognitive load and render the tools incomprehensible. Accordingly, there is a need for an efficient teaching approach that can provide practical knowledge to users while decreas...
This study offers evidence of the impact of language background on the performance of students enrolled in an accounting study unit. It aims to quantify the effects of language background on performance in essay questions, compared to calculation questions requiring an application of procedures. Marks were collected from 2850 students. The results...
Spaced and interleaved practices have been identified as effective learning strategies
which sometimes are conflated as a single strategy and at other times treated as distinct.
Learning sessions in which studying information or practicing problems are spaced in
time with rest-from-deliberate-learning periods between sessions generally result in be...
The imagination effect occurs when students learn better from imagining concepts and procedures rather than from studying them. Cognitive load theory explains the effect by better use of available working memory resources and increased productive, intrinsic cognitive load. The effect has been found in numerous empirical studies. However, in the maj...
Many large scale, school-based interventions have attempted to improve academic performance through promoting students' growth mindset, defined as the belief that one's intellectual ability can increase with practice and time. However, most have shown weak to no effects. Thus, it is important to examine how growth mindset might affect retention and...
Face-to-face and computer-mediated collaboration have been used extensively in educational practice. However, research on teaching writing skills for English as a foreign language under collaborative conditions has reported mixed or even negative findings. Cognitive load theory can be used to explain many of these contradictory findings. An experim...
Cognitive load theory has become a leading model in educational psychology and has started to gain traction in the medical education community over the last decade. The theory is rooted in our current understanding of human cognitive architecture in which an individual's limited working memory and unlimited long-term memory interact during the proc...
The Isolated Elements and Variability Effects of Cognitive Load Theory were used to alter the element interactivity of Chinese characters when instructing novice learners (72 overseas students at a Chinese university) in writing characters using worked examples‐practice procedures. A group of characters with more than eight strokes was disassembled...
The concept of productive failure posits that a problem-solving phase prior to explicit instruction is more effective than explicit instruction followed by problem-solving. This prediction was tested with Year 5 primary school students learning about light energy efficiency. Two, fully randomised, controlled experiments were conducted. In the first...
The modality effect, which has been investigated by cognitive load theory, predicts that learning from visualizations supplemented with written text should be less effective than learning from the same visualizations supplemented with comparable spoken text. An explanation of the effect assumes a degree of separation between the processing of visuo...
Collaborative learning is a widely used instructional technique, but factors determining its effectiveness still are unclear. Cognitive load theory was used to examine the effects of prior collaborative experience and density of distribution of information amongst learners on short-term retention and delayed retention tests, as well as cognitive ef...
There are basically two formats used in instructional visualizations, namely, static pictures and dynamic visualizations (e.g., animations and videos). Both can be engaging and fun for university students in the fields of health and natural sciences. However, engagement by itself is not always conducive to learning. Consequently, teachers, lecturer...
High element interactivity software interfaces can increase cognitive load rendering them incomprehensible for users (Reis et al., 2012). In this study gamification was selected as a procedure to reduce users’ cognitive load (Darejeh & Salim, 2016). Previous research found that familiar narrative led to superior performance when compared to an unfa...
Cognitive load theory was introduced in the 1980s as an instructional design theory based on several uncontroversial aspects of human cognitive architecture. Our knowledge of many of the characteristics of working memory, long-term memory and the relations between them had been well-established for many decades prior to the introduction of the theo...
The testing effect occurs when students, given information to learn and then practice during a test, perform better on a subsequent content post-test than students who restudy the information as a substitute for the practice test. The effect is often weaker or reversed if immediate rather than delayed post-tests are used. The weakening may be due t...
Based on cognitive load theory, this paper reports on two experiments investigating the variability effect that occurs when learners’ exposure to highly variable tasks results in superior test performance. It was hypothesised that the effect was more likely to occur using high rather than low levels of guidance and testing more knowledgeable than l...
Software interfaces that contain multiple interacting tools that need to be processed simultaneously in order to use the software (ie. are high in element interactivity), can increase users' cognitive load. In this study, we investigated interactions between Narrative (an element of gamification) and element interactivity levels of the pedagogical...
The expertise reversal effect occurs when instruction that is effective for novice learners is ineffective or even counterproductive for more expert learners. Four experiments designed to explore the expertise reversal effect in the field of teaching and learning foreign language listening skills were conducted. Three instructional formats (read-on...
According to the concept of desirable difficulties, introducing difficulties in learning may sacrifice short-term performance in order to benefit long-term retention of learning. We describe three types of desirable difficulty effects: testing, generation, and varied conditions of practice. The empirical literature indicates that desirable difficul...
Cognitive load theory was used to hypothesize that the effectiveness of collaborative learning is moderated by the completeness of the prerequisite knowledge bases of group members. It was predicted that when group members have gaps in their knowledge base that can be filled by other group members, collaborative is superior to individual learning....
Depletion of limited working memory resources may occur following extensive mental effort resulting in decreased performance compared to conditions requiring less extensive mental effort. This “depletion effect” can be incorporated into cognitive load theory that is concerned with using the properties of human cognitive architecture, especially wor...
Cognitive load theory has traditionally been associated with individual learning. Based on evolutionary educational psychology and our knowledge of human cognition, particularly the relations between working memory and long-term memory, the theory has been used to generate a variety of instructional effects. Though these instructional effects also...
A worked example is a form of explicit instruction that provides a detailed solution to a problem. Solutions can consist of, for example, step-by-step answers to mathematics questions or a model answer to an essay question. Cognitive load theory has been used to hypothesize that when novice students first learn complex areas that impose a heavy wor...
By increasing the number of features that software applications provide, they become more complex and in order to use the software efficiently, effective training methods that integrate psychologically based guidelines with modern training technologies are essential. To learn to use software efficiently, users need to learn the interface layout fir...
Within the framework of cognitive load theory, the element interactivity and the expertise reversal effects usually are not treated as closely related effects. We argue that the two effects may be intertwined with the expertise reversal effect constituting a particular example of the element interactivity effect. Specifically, the element interacti...
Several widely implemented educational approaches aim to provide academic content in a foreign language. While Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) works because it focuses both on content and on foreign language learning, approaches aiming at transmitting academic content through a foreign language should not be implemented without expl...
Research on either cognitive load theory or self-regulated learning usually proceeds without reference to the other theory. In this commentary, we have commented on the editorial introduction and the six papers included in this Special Issue intended to indicate possible links between the two theories. To assist in this process, we have analysed so...
The testing effect arises when learners who are tested rather than relearning material obtain superior scores on a final test than those who relearn. Based on cognitive load theory, six experiments examined whether the effect was evident under low or high element interactivity (a measure of complexity) conditions. Students learning to write types o...
A massive, open, online course (MOOC) is a form of computer-based learning that offers open access, internet-based education for unlimited numbers of participants. However, the general quality and utility of MOOCs has been criticized. Most MOOCs have been structured with minimal consideration of relevant aspects of human cognitive architecture and...
Worked examples and collaborative learning have both been shown to facilitate learning. However, the testing of both strategies almost exclusively has been conducted independently of each other. The main aim of the current study was to examine interactions between these 2 strategies. Two experiments (N = 182 and N = 122) were conducted with Grade-7...
The information that humans acquire can be divided into two categories. One category, biologically primary knowledge, is largely generic in nature leading to generic cognitive skills. It is critically important, and so we have evolved to acquire such skills without explicit tuition or conscious thought. The other category, biologically secondary kn...
Cognitive load theory is used to design instruction. Several aspects of human cognition are critical to instructional design. First, the theory assumes we have not specifically evolved to learn the topics taught in educational and training institutions. Second, these topics require learners to acquire domain-specific rather than generic-cognitive k...
Studying worked examples providing problem solutions to learners usually leads to better test performance than solving the equivalent problems without guidance, demonstrating the worked-example effect. The generation effect occurs when learners who generate answers without guidance learn better than those who read answers that provide guidance. The...
Prior research has used many variants of “be creative” or brainstorm instructions to enhance creativity in a variety of tasks. However, differences in instruction wording may lead to differences in instruction interpretation, and varying the placement of instructions before or after a written problem description may lead to differences in problem i...
The contradiction between the worked example effect that occurs when learners presented with more instructional guidance learn more than learners presented with less guidance and the generation effect that occurs when the reverse result is obtained can be resolved by the suggestion that the worked example effect is obtained using materials high in...
Educational psychologists have tended since the late 19th century to neglect domain specific knowledge. Yet domain specific knowledge can provide a clear explanation of a very large range of human cognitive performance. It also can afford a common point of reference between psychologists and educationalists. In this article, we examine the long his...
Evolutionary educational psychology provides a framework for more fully understanding what we learn, how we learn, and informs us of the instructional procedures that should work in modern schools. Knowledge can be categorized into biologically primary knowledge that can be acquired automatically through natural activities such as play without expl...
Lessons Learned
There are several general lessons (not generic cognitive skills!) that I have learned over an almost half century of research. The main one is that age-old lesson that applies to many facets of life: if you are confident of your ideas, persist.
[Download the PDF and read more . . .]
Based on cognitive load theory and the transient information effect, this paper investigated the modality effect while interpreting a contour map. The length and complexity of auditory and visual text instructions were manipulated. Experiment 1 indicated that longer audio text information within a presentation was inferior to the equivalent longer...
Based on cognitive load theory, the effect of different levels of instructional detail and expertise in a simulation-based environment on learning about concepts of correlation was investigated. Separate versions of the learning environment were designed for the four experimental conditions which differed only with regard to the levels of written i...
This research found that instructing students to ‘be creative’ while solving a business problem enhanced the number and novelty of ideas suggested, but reduced the relevance of the ideas to the problem.
Element interactivity is a central concept of cognitive load theory that defines the complexity of a learning task. The reduction of task complexity through a temporarysegmentation or isolation of interacting elements was investigated with 104 students randomly assigned to an interacting elements group, where participants were required to deal with...
Statement:
Simulation-based education (SBE) has emerged as an effective and important tool for medical educators, but research about how to optimize training with simulators is in its infancy. It is often difficult to generalize results from experiments on instructional design issues in simulation because of the heterogeneity of learner groups, te...
Abstract Computer simulations were used to teach students basic concepts associated with correlation. Half of the students were presented information in a sequential series of single frames in which each frame replaced the preceding frame while the other half were presented the information in simultaneous multiple frames in which each frame was add...
Cognitive load theory was devised for precisely the conditions under which people must deal with a heavy information-processing load and hence it has implications for both training and practice. This chapter discusses the cognitive architecture that underlies the theory and some of its consequent general design guidelines before applying it to medi...
Academic learning is different from much of the learning engaged in by humans functioning in the natural world. It differs in terms of the cognitive systems that have evolved to assimilate new information. Academic learning requires specific teaching and learning procedures that occur only occasionally outside of academic contexts. The manner in wh...
The testing effect is a finding from cognitive psychology with relevance for education. It shows that after an initial study period, taking a practice test improves long-term retention compared to not taking a test and—more interestingly—compared to restudying the learning material. Boundary conditions of the effect that have received attention inc...
The testing effect occurs when learners who are tested rather than relearning material perform better on a final test than those who relearn. Based on cognitive load theory, it was predicted that the testing effect may not be obtained when the material being learned is high in element interactivity. Three experiments investigated conditions of the...
Two experiments investigated the effect of level and location of guidance on transfer performance when learning physics. Experiment 1 demonstrated the overall advantage of an example–problem sequence over the reverse sequence and indicated that presenting instances of principle application in worked examples could facilitate physics learning for le...
The worked example effect indicates that examples providing full guidance on how to solve a problem result in better test performance than a problem-solving condition with no guidance. The generation effect occurs when learners generating responses demonstrate better test performance than learners in a presentation condition that provides an answer...
Tailoring of instructional methods to learner levels of expertise may reduce extraneous cognitive load and improve learning. Contemporary technology-based learning environments have the potential to substantially enable learner-adapted instruction. This paper investigates the effects of adaptive instruction based on using the isolated-interactive e...
Sixty-nine high school students practised on geometry subtopics using worked example–problem pairs. The free-choice group had a choice of their practice pairs, whereas the deliberate practice group was presented with practice tasks that covered all and only their weak areas as determined by a pretest. The results demonstrated a significant instruct...
The redundancy principle (or redundancy effect) suggests that redundant material interferes with rather than facilitates learning. Redundancy occurs when the same information is presented concurrently in multiple forms or is unnecessarily elaborated. According to cognitive load theory, coordinating redundant information with essential information i...
Cognitive load theory was used to hypothesize that a general problem-solving strategy based on a make-as-many-moves-as-possible heuristic could facilitate problem solutions for transfer problems. In four experiments, school students were required to learn about a topic through practice with a general problem-solving strategy, through a conventional...
Research has demonstrated that instruction that relies heavily on studying worked examples is more effective for less experienced learners compared to instruction emphasizing problem solving. However, the guidance associated with studying some worked examples may reduce the performance of more experienced learners. This study investigated categorie...
In this digital era, the gap between the elderly and younger generations in their use of computer-based technology is wide, and many researchers in behavioural and social sciences, along with educators, welfare workers, and policy makers, are concerned about this disturbing phenomenon. However, it is not clear whether this discrepancy is due to a l...
The capacity limitations of working memory are a major impediment when students are required to learn new material. Furthermore, those limitations are relatively inflexible. Nevertheless, there is one technique that can effectively expand working memory capacity. Under certain well-defined conditions, presenting some information in visual mode and...
Worked examples, commonly used in technical domains, are rarely used in language areas such as English literature. In 3 experiments, Korean university students for whom English was a foreign language received worked examples intended to facilitate problem solving in the ill-structured domain of English literature. During the learning phase, half of...
Using a cognitive load theory approach, we investigated the effects of speaker variability when individuals are learning to understand English as a foreign language (EFL) spoken by foreign-accented speakers. The use of multiple, Indian-accented speakers was compared to that of a single speaker for Chinese EFL learners with a higher or lower English...
Domain-general cognitive knowledge has frequently been used to explain skill when domain-specific knowledge held in long-term memory may provide a better explanation. An emphasis on domain-general knowledge may be misplaced if domain-specific knowledge is the primary factor driving acquired intellectual skills. We trace the long history of attempts...
Animation has an inherent advantage over static graphics when presenting dynamic content because it provides a more accurate and realistic depiction. Simultaneously, animation has an inherent disadvantage because most animated information is perceptually transient. In this quasi-experimental study, cognitive load theory was used to investigate the...
This study examined the influence of deliberate practice, defined as practice specifically aimed at learners' weak areas and only their weak areas, on 8th graders performance in geometry. A control group had a choice over practice problems and their sequencing. Experiment 1 indicated a disordinal practice schedule by knowledge interaction. Simple e...
It is argued that some general problem-solving strategies are a form of biologically primary knowledge (Geary, 2012) in that humans have acquired them over many generations and use them to solve novel problems. On the basis of this classification, cognitive load theory was used to predict that under certain conditions, novice learners could be taug...
This study investigated the consequences of simultaneously reading and listening to the same materials when learning English as a foreign language. During acquisition, native Arabic-speaking university students were asked to learn some English words and sentences either by reading them or by simultaneously reading and listening to the same spoken m...
Cognitive load theory is intended to provide instructional strategies derived from experimental, cognitive load effects. Each effect is based on our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, primarily the limited capacity and duration of a human working memory. These limitations are ameliorated by changes in long-term memory associated with learni...
Two experiments using the science topics of Magnetism and Light were conducted with younger learners (Year 5) who had no prior
knowledge of the topics, and older learners (Year 6) who had studied the topics previously. Half of the learners were presented
the information in auditory form only while the other half were presented the auditory informat...
In this digital era, the gap between the elderly and younger generations in their use of computer-based technology is wide, and many researchers in behavioural and social sciences, along with educators, welfare workers, and policy makers, are concerned about this disturbing phenomenon. However, it is not clear whether this discrepancy is due to a l...
Disputes about the impact of instructional guidance during teaching have been ongoing for more than a half-century. On one side of this argument are thosewho believe that all people—novices and experts
alike—learn best when provided with instruction that contains
unguided or partly guided segments. This is generally defined
as instruction in which...
Cognitive load theory uses evolutionary theory to consider human cognitive architecture and uses that architecture to devise novel, instructional procedures. The theory assumes that knowledge can be divided into biologically primary knowledge that we have evolved to acquire and biologically secondary knowledge that is important for cultural reasons...
The modality effect occurs when audio/visual instructions are superior to visual only instructions. The effect was explored in two experiments conducted within a cognitive load theory framework. In Experiment 1, two groups of primary school students (N = 24) were presented with either audio/visual or visual only instructions on how to read a temper...
Citations
... When learners process new information, the construction and automation of cognitive schemas in long-term memory (i.e., learning) are seriously constrained by the number of elements that can be simultaneously activated and processed in working memory. If the number of interacting elements in working memory is too high, cognitive overload occurs and learning is hampered (Chen et al., 2023). Moreover, cognitive load theory encompasses a range of different concepts, such as principles of acquiring new information as well as principles of storing information (Sweller, 2020). ...
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... Taking this a step further, the spatial contiguity principle suggests that written words and pictures should be presented in close spatial proximity to reduce the cognitive demands needed for visual search to connect words with related pictures . The modality principle asserts that learners benefit from multimodal multimedia, or words conveyed as narration (auditory channel) along with pictures (visual channel) under certain circumstances (Castro-Alonso & Sweller, 2022). When individuals attend to written words, these words are initially processed within the visual channel of working memory, subsequently mentally converted to sound, and later organized into a verbal model (Mayer, 2022a). ...