COGNITIVE LOAD THEORY AND THE DESIGN OF INSTRUCTION Paul Allan Chandler B.Sc.

330 Pages·2015·13.32 MB·English

COGNITIVE LOAD THEORY AND THE DESIGN OF INSTRUCTION
Paul Allan Chandler
B.Sc. (Hons.). Dip. Ed. M.Sc.
Thesis submitted to the University of New South Wales in fulfilment
of the conditions for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Education Studies
University of New South Wales
Australia
1992
JKIVÜSITY CF N.S.W.
1 2 JUL 1993
LIBRARY
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Declaration
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person
nor material which to a substantial extent has been excepted for the award of any other degree or
diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning, except where acknowledgement is
made in the text.
Paul Allan Chandler
(ü)
Acknowledgements
I would like extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to my supervisor and friend Professor
John Sweller who provided continual support, encouragement and constructive criticism with this
thesis.
The cooperation and support provided by the staff of the New South Wales Department of
Education and by Email Ltd. was greatly appreciated. I extend my sincere thanks to Email’s
training staff: Brian Jones, Richard Winter, John Harley, and Jim Jarick.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their support and encouragement.
(Hi)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Declaration i
Acknowledgements ii
Table of Contents iii
Abstract ix
PART 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter 1 : Thinking and Problem solving
1-1 History of thinking and problem solving
1-1-1 From Aristotle to Dewey 1
1-1-2 The Behaviourist’s account of problem solving 2
1-1-3 The Gestalt’s view of problem solving 4
1-2 The Information Processing approach to
thinking and problem solving
1 -2-1 Humans as information processing systems 5
1-2-2 Human memory 6
1 -2-3 Well-defined versus Ill-defined problems 8
1 -2-4 Transformation problems 9
1-2-5 Semantically rich versus semantically impoverished problems 10
(iv)
1-3 Information Processing Theory and Puzzle Problems
1-3-1 Means-ends analysis 11
1-3-2 The Tower of Hanoi problem 13
1-3-3 The Missionaries and Cannibals problem 16
1 -3-4 The Water Jug problem 19
1 -3-5 A word about means-ends analysis and puzzle problems 22
1- 4 Summary of Chapter 1 22
Chapter 2 : Expert/Novice differences and role of schema theory
2- 1 Distinguishing experts and novices 25
2-2 Schemas and schema theory 26
2-3 Memory of Problem States
2-3-1 Memory skills and expertise in chess 28
2-3-2 Memory skills in GO and overlapping chunks 32
2-3-3 Memory skills in other domains 33
2-3-4 Summary of Memory of Problem State literature 35
2-4 Features used in categorisation of problems
2-4-1 Categorising algebra word problems 36
2-4-2 Expert/novice differences in categorising physics problems 36
2-4-3 Difference in knowledge bases 39
2-4-4 Gaining expertise and changes in categorising techniques 41
2-4-5 Summary of categorisation research 42
(v)
2-5 Expert/novice differences in problem solving
2-5-1 Solution strategies with kinematics problems 42
2-5-2 Experl/novice differences in terms of schema theory 45
2-6 Rule Automation
2-6-1 What is rule automation? 46
2-6-2 Evidence for rule automation 47
2-6-3 A word about dichotomous states 48
2- 7 Summary of Chapter 2 48
Chapter 3 : Cognitive load theory
3- 1 Background of cognitive load theory
3-1-1 Theoretical overview 50
3-1 -2 Empirical background 51
3-1-3 The usefulness of means-ends analysis as a learning tool? 54
3-2 Computational model support for cognitive load theory
3-2-1 Attentional factors during means-ends analysis 55
3-2-2 Cognitive load during means-ends analysis 56
3-3 Empirical evidence for cognitive load theory
3-3-1 Effects generated by cognitive load theory 62
3-3-2 The goal free effect 62
3-3-3 The worked example effect 68
3-3-4 The split-attention effect 74
3-4 Summary of Chapter 3 79
(vi)
Chapter 4 : Applying Cognitive load theory to initial instruction
4-1 The split-attention effect and initial instruction
4-1-1 Factors determining initial instruction 82
4-1-2 Applying the split-attention effect to initial instructional materials 84
4-1 -3 Extending the findings of the ’’split-attention” effect 87
4-2 The possibility of a "redundancy” effect
4-2-1 Does extra information ever impede learning? 88
4-2-2 Empirical findings suggesting a redundancy effect 91
4-3 Summary of Chapter 4 93
4- 4 Brief description of experiments used in thesis 94
PART 2 : EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION
Chapter 5 : Extending the split-attention effect
5- 1 Experiment 1 96
5- 2 Experiment 2 105
Chapter 6 : Testing for a redundancy effect
6- 1 Experiment 3 115
6-2 Experiment 4 124
(vii)
6- 3 Experiment 5 130
Chapter 7: Extending the redundancy effect and
reintroducing the split-attention effect
7- 1 Experiment 6 137
7- 2 Experiment 7 145
PART 3 : DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Chapter 8 : General Discussion
8- 1 Summary of Results 152
8-2 Methodological and theoretical considerations
8-2-1 Methodological issues 154
8-2-2 Theoretical issues 155
8-3 Instructional Applications 156
8-4 Comments on the redundancy effect
8-4-1 A post-script on the redundancy effect 159
8-4-2 Extension of the redundancy effect 160
8-5 Future Research
8-5-1 Further extension of the split-attention and redundancy effects 161
8-5-2 Sources of natural cognitive load 162
(viii)
8-6 Concluding Comments 167
Bibliography 168
Appendices
Appendix la - The conventional instructions used in Experiment 1 181
Appendix lb - The modified instructions used in Experiment 1 193
Appendix lc - The test materials used in Experiment 1 203
Appendix 2a - The conventional instructions used in Experiment 2 213
Appendix 2b - The modified instructions used in Experiment 2 223
Appendix 2c - The written test materials used in Experiment 2 233
Appendix 3a - The conventional instructions used in Experiment 3 239
Appendix 3b - The modified instructions used in Experiment 3 250
Appendix 3c - The written test materials used in Experiment 3 261
Appendix 4a - The test materials used in Experiment 4 264
Appendix 5a - The test materials used in Experiment 5 266
Appendix 6a - The test materials used in Experiments 6 and 7 268
Appendix 7a - List of author’s publications 272
Appendix 7b - Copy of Chandler and Sweller (1991) 274
Appendix 7c - Copy of Sweller and Chandler (1991) 295
Appendix 7d - Copy of Chandler and Sweller (1992) 303