COGNITIVE EFFICIENCY - TOWARD A REVISED THEORY OF MEDIA

Within and beyond the field of educational technology, Richard Clark's writings are widely believed to have shown that any number of media a re equally capable of delivering any instruction, so that media choice s are about cost and efficiency but not about cognition and learning ( Clark, 1983; 1994b). However, if it is accepted that one type of effic iency is cognitive efficiency, then it follows that media choices are often about cognition and learning and can profit from an understandin g of cognitive processes. Media and learning can then be reconnected i n limited ways that do not compromise any of Clark's main points, and doing this will bring media work into line with current research into the role of surface information codes.