Using subjective measures to detect variations of intrinsic cognitive load within problems

By Paul Ayres. 2006

390 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Cognitive load theorists have frequently used subjective measures of cognitive load to test the effectiveness of instructional procedures. This study sought to broaden the applications of subjective measures by testing their ability to detect variations in intrinsic cognitive load within tasks. In two experiments students were asked to complete algebraic problems and provide a subjective measure of cognitive load for each computation completed. By keeping extraneous and germane cognitive load constant, it was argued that changes in intrinsic cognitive load (element interactivity) were measured. Results showed that subjective measures were highly reliable, varied significantly within problems and correlated highly with errors. Evidence was also found that the subjective measures were influenced by the expertise of the learner and procedural errors.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1ee7d9978f61ae2035bdc3920a25aa3d9339d5f8

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In Artificial Intelligence

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Cognitive load theory, educational research, and instructional design: some food for thought (2010, neutral): “multidimensional character (Ayres 2006b).”
Measuring Cognitive Load: Are There More Valid Alternatives to Likert Rating Scales? (2021, background): “Studies have shown that subjective task difficulty ratings, like mental effort ratings, varied according to the level of element interactivity of a task (e.g., Ayres, 2006; Ouwehand et al., 2014).”
Timing and Frequency of Mental Effort Measurement: Evidence in Favour of Repeated Measures (2012, methodology): “…in task difficulty which are associated with cognitive load, such as perceived difficulty ratings, which have also been applied during tasks (e.g., Ayres, 2006), after each task (e.g., Marcus, Cooper, & Sweller, 1996), or after a sequence of tasks (e.g., Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, & Sweller,…”
Cognitive Load and Working Memory in Multimedia Learning: Conceptual and Measurement Issues (2019, background): “…about whether such measures are sufficiently sensitive to discriminate between the different types of cognitive load and whether the subjective perceptions of task difficulty and mental effort are related to the actual cognitive load (e.g., Ayres, 2006; Br€unken et al., 2003; van Gog & Paas, 2008).”
A Comparison of Three Measures of Cognitive Load: Evidence for Separable Measures of Intrinsic, Extraneous, and Germane Load (2008, result): “This work is consistent with recent findings reported by Ayres (2006), in which a subjective rating measure administered after each problem was sensitive to differences in intrinsic processing, and by Brünken, Plass, and Leutner (2004), in which a dual-task measure was sensitive to differences in…”
Measuring cognitive load with subjective rating scales during problem solving: differences between immediate and delayed ratings (2015, background): “Moreover, these studies showed the effectiveness of the rating scale by showing that the variation in learners’ cognitive load ratings depended on variations in task complexity or instructional design (Ayres 2006; Paas et al. 1994; for overviews see Paas et al. 2003a, b; Van Gog and Paas 2008).”
Instructional efficiency of animation: effects of interactivity through mental reconstruction of static key frames (2007, background): “Several studies have tried to manage the high extraneous load imposed by the continuous flow of transient information elements with specific strategies such as segmenting, cueing and tracing (e.g. Betrancourt, 2005; Marcus, KhengJoo, Beng-Fei, & Ayres, 2006; Mayer & Chandler, 2001).”
Development of an instrument for measuring different types of cognitive load (2013, methodology): “…second study (henceforth, Study II), we administered a questionnaire comprising these ten items and the aforementioned scales by Paas (1992) for CL, Ayres (2006) for IL, Cierniak et al. (2009) for EL, and Salomon (1984) for GL in a lecture in statistics for 171 second-year bachelor students in…”
Instructional Efficiency: Revisiting the Original Construct in Educational Research (2008, background): “Moreover, the concurrent validity of the 9-point mental effort rating scale is shown by its sensitivity to detect variations in task complexity (see Paas et al., 1994) and to variations in intrinsic load during task performance (Ayres, 2006).”
Cognitive Load Theory: How Many Types of Load Does It Really Need? (2011, methodology): “In this way, Ayres (2006) used ratings of difficulty of computational steps in algebraic problems as an indication of intrinsic load, whereas Kalyuga et al.”
Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later (2019, methodology): “Whereas several researchers have tried to measure only changes in one specific type of cognitive load (e.g. Ayres 2006), others have investigated methods to measure the different types of cognitive load (e.g. Cierniak et al. 2009).”
Interactions of Metacognition With Motivation and Affect in Self-Regulated Learning: The MASRL Model (2011, background): “Moreover, cognitive overload may occur due to working memory constraints, and error may occur during the assembly of processing schemas (Ayres, 2006).”
The Scientific Value of Cognitive Load Theory: A Research Agenda Based on the Structuralist View of Theories (2009, background): “Complex domains are characterized by a high level of element interactivity and require learners to not only hold information about these elements but also their interconnections simultaneously in working memory in order to integrate the information into a schema (Ayres 2006; Halford et al. 1998).”