Working Memory Resources Depletion Makes Delayed Testing Beneficial

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Ouhao Chen ◽  
Slava Kalyuga

Cognitive load theory (CLT) uses working memory resources depletion to explain the superiority of spaced learning, predicting that working memory resources will be less taxed if there are resting/spacing periods inserted between learning tasks, in comparison to learning from the same tasks in a single session. This article uses the working memory resources depletion effect, as a factor, to investigate the hypothesis that delayed testing would show superior results to immediate testing on math tasks for primary students in Singapore, as participants' working memory resources might be restored because of the resting between the immediate and delayed tests. Results confirmed higher performance on the delayed test than on the immediate test, as well as more working memory resources available for the delayed test.

Author(s):  
Ouhao Chen ◽  
Slava Kalyuga

In classroom, student learning is affected by multiple factors that influence information processing. Working memory with its limited capacity and duration plays a key role in learner ability to process information and, therefore, is critical for student performance. Cognitive load theory, based on human cognitive architecture, focuses on the instructional implications of relations between working memory and learner knowledge base in long-term memory. The ultimate goal of this theory is to generate effective instructional methods that allow managing students' working memory load to optimize their learning, indicating the relations between the form of instructional design and the function of instructional design. This chapter considers recent additions to the theory based on working memory resources depletion that occurs after exerting significant cognitive effort and reverses after a rest period. The discussed implications for instructional design include optimal sequencing of learning and assessment tasks using spaced and massed practice tasks, immediate and delayed tests.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Meguerdichian ◽  
Katie Walker ◽  
Komal Bajaj

This analysis explores how to optimise knowledge transfer in healthcare simulation by applying cognitive load theory to curriculum design and delivery for both novice and expert learners. This is particularly relevant for interprofessional learning which is team-based, as each participant comes to the simulation experience with different levels of expertise. Healthcare simulation can offer opportunities to create complex and dynamic experiences that replicate real clinical situations. Understanding Cognitive Load Theory can foster the acquisition of complex knowledge, skills and abilities required to deliver excellence in patient care without overwhelming a learner's ability to handle new materials due to working memory limitations. The 2 aspects of working memory that will be explored in this paper are intrinsic load and extrinsic load. These will be addressed in terms of the learner's level of expertise and how to consider these elements to enhance the learning environment in simulation scenario development and delivery. By applying the concepts of Cognitive Load Theory, this paper offers educators a method to tailor their curricula to navigate working memory and optimise the opportunity for knowledge transfer.


Author(s):  
Patricia M. Boechler

Cognitive load theory (CLT) is currently the most prominent cognitive theory pertaining to instructional design and is referred to in numerous empirical articles in the educational literature (for example, Brünken, Plass, & Leutner, 2003; Chandler & Sweller, 1991; Paas, Tuovinen, Tabbers, & Van Gerven, 2003; Sweller, van Merri¸nboer, & Paas, 1998). CLT was developed to assist educators in designing optimal presentations of information to encourage learning. CLT has also been extended and applied to the design of educational hypermedia and multimedia (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). The theory is built around the idea that the human cognitive architecture has inherent limitations related to capacity, in particular, the limitations of human working memory. As Sweller et al. (pp. 252-253) state: The implications of working memory limitations on instructional design cannot be overstated. All conscious cognitive activity learners engage in occurs in a structure whose limitations seem to preclude all but the most basic processes. Anything beyond the simplest cognitive activities appear to overwhelm working memory. Prima facie, any instructional design that flouts or merely ignores working memory limitations inevitably is deficient. It is this factor that provides a central claim to cognitive load theory. In order to understand the full implications of cognitive load theory, an overview of the human memory system is necessary.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stoo Sepp ◽  
Steven J. Howard ◽  
Sharon Tindall-Ford ◽  
Shirley Agostinho ◽  
Fred Paas

Author(s):  
Rissa Prima Kurniawati

<p>Multimedia is media that combine two or more elements are composed of text, graphics, images, photographs, audio, video, and animation are integrated. In multimedia-assisted learning, students are given the opportunity to learn not only of learning resources such as teachers, but give the opportunity to students to develop better cognitive, creative, and innovative. Cognitive Load Theory is a theory that was introduced as a teaching theory based on the knowledge of human cognitive architecture that we have. The main principle of Cognitive Load Theory is the quality of learning is enhanced if attention is concentrated on the role and limitations of working memory. Three cognitive load in working memory, which is intrinsic cognitive load, Germany cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Multimedia, Cognitive Load Theory, intrinsic cognitive load,<strong> </strong>Germany cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.</p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
Kim Ouwehand ◽  
Tamara van Gog ◽  
Fred Paas

The present chapter describes the role of gestures in instructional design from a cognitive load theory perspective, addressing in particular how this might benefit aging adults. Healthy older adults have to cope with several cognitive changes related to their working memory, such as a decline in: 1) the ability to deal with interference, 2) cognitive speed in response to unimodal stimuli (e.g. visual information), and 3) the ability to associate and integrate information elements. Cognitive load theory, with its focus on adapting learning formats to the limitations of working memory, provides a promising framework to address learning in older adults. Research inspired by cognitive load theory has shown that attentional cueing can reduce interference during learning, presenting instructions in a multimodal format can make more efficient use of WM stores (both auditory and visual), and the manner of presentation of information can aid integrative learning. Interestingly, studies using gestures in instruction show that gestures accompanying verbal information improve learning in similar ways. However, not much research has been done in applying the instructional guidelines of cognitive load theory and the use of gestures to older adults’ learning. In the present chapter, the authors will discuss possibilities of gestures to improve multimedia learning in older adults using some important guidelines proposed by cognitive load theory.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ms. Vaishali Manoj Sawant

Cognitive load refers to load imposed on the working memory while performing a particular task. The basic premise of cognitive load theory is that learners have a limited capacity when dealing with new information. Moreover cognitive load theory assumes that learners have “an effectively unlimited long term memory holding cognitive schemas that vary in their degree of complexity and automation”. Furthermore, when handling new information, working memory is severely limited in both capacity and duration. The educational implication of cognitive load theory hence focuses on reduction of work load on working memory so as to increase learning effectiveness. Because novices lack the schemas necessary to process complex material in working memory, scaffolding for these missing schemas, thereby promotes schema construction. In this study on 41 Student teachers undergoing the online training on Scaffolded Problem Based Learning (PBLS), Cognitive load is measured in terms of mental efforts and mental load experienced by the learners while working towards solutions to the problems. Findings indicate significant difference between the cognitive load felt before and after the training which is also supported by the  qualitative data indicating  reduction in  the cognitive load as the students move from Problem one to Problem ten.


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