Cognitive load effects in a primary-school geometry task

Abstract

Cognitive load theory suggests that some instructional procedures are ineffective because they require students to engage in superfluous cognitive activities purely because of the manner in which the material is presented rather than because of its intrinsic nature. When students are forced to process redundant material or split their attention between multiple sources of information, an extraneous cognitive load may be imposed. Four experiments were designed to investigate the redundancy and split-attention effects using a primary-school paper-folding activity. Experiment 1 indicated that instructional presentations with extraneous information eliminated were superior to formats containing redundant material. Experiment 2 indicated that the redundancy effect could be increased if more elaborated text was included in the redundant format of the instructional material. The aim of Experiment 3 was to test the prediction that the redundancy effect could also be generated by the inclusion of extraneous diagrams. It was found that redundant instructional material could increase cognitive processing load even when all redundant information is conveyed diagrammatically. Experiment 4 indicated that a format in which instructions were embedded in materials that required manipulation could facilitate learning by reducing redundant information and removing the need to split attention between physically separated materials. It was concluded that the usefulness of additional information must outweigh the consequences of having to process that information.