WHY SOME MATERIAL IS DIFFICULT TO LEARN

The experiments reported in this article flow from the following assum ptions concerning OUT cognitive processes: (a) Schema acquisition and automation are major learning mechanisms when dealing with higher cogn itive activities and are designed to circumvent our limited working me mories and emphasize our highly effective long-term memories. (b) A li mited working memory makes it difficult to assimilate multiple element s of information simultaneously. (c) Under conditions where multiple e lements of information interact, they must be assimilated simultaneous ly. (d) As a consequence, a heavy cognitive load is imposed when deali ng with material that has a high level of element interactivity. (e) H igh levels of element interactivity and their associated cognitive loa ds may be caused both by the intrinsic nature of the material being le arned and by the method of presentation. (f) If the intrinsic element interactivity and Consequent cognitive load are low, the extraneous co gnitive load caused by instructional design may not be very important. In contrast, extraneous cognitive load is critical when dealing with intrinsically high element interactivity materials. These assumptions are the basic points of cognitive load theory. They were used to sugge st that, when learning to use equipment such as computer applications, learning might be facilitated by not having the equipment present, if the material that needed to be learned had an intrinsically high degr ee of clement interactivity. A series of four experiments supported th is hypothesis. It was concluded that an analysis of both intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load can lead to instructional designs generatin g spectacular gains in learning efficiency.