Reducing notetaking and cognitive load in undergraduate anatomy courses

Abstract

This presentation reports on the effectiveness of using cognitive load theory to design effective undergraduate human anatomy instruction. An experiment was conducted to make comparisons between two instructional formats: traditional instruction and cognitively-guided instruction. Both lecture formats were computerized and contained the same anatomical imagery. The cognitively-guided format consisted of providing students with a partially-completed template of the lecture notes. The variables under analysis were instruction time, test performance, and student motivation. Advantages of cognitively-guided note-taking included eliminating the need for students to split their attention between multiple sources of mutually referring information, promoting the mental integration of knowledge, focusing learner attention on the critical aspects of the course content, and reducing instructional time. These results supported the hypothesis that intentionally reducing cognitive load during learning by novices reduces cognitive interference and improves the probability of knowledge transfer and retention. Cognitively-guided instruction should be used to mentally integrate knowledge rather than using superficial redundancy to memorize long lists of facts.