Assimilating complex information

By E. Pollock, Paul Chandler, John Sweller. 2002

697 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Methods of instruction which are intended to facilitate understanding tend to incorporate all the information elements required for understanding in the instructions. Frequently, these types of instructions may overwhelm a learner's limited working memory and hinder learning. In four experiments, a two-phase, isolated-interacting elements learning approach was developed in which in the first phase, the element interactivity of complex material was artificially reduced by presenting the material as isolated elements of information that could be processed serially, rather than simultaneously, in working memory. In the second phase, all the information for understanding was presented. The control group was simply presented with all the information for understanding in both Phases 1 and 2. The results provided powerful evidence that for certain groups of learners, information is better learnt through the isolated-interacting elements instructional method.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ea6ef14e6fe130005d35f8b1c8cda022edcc02ee

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In Artificial Intelligence

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction (2011, background): “The situated nature of the catchable passing task enhances learners’ understandings not only of how to perform a throw and a catch, but also when and where to pass, increasing students’ opportunities for success in complex game situations (Rink, 2014).”
A Cognitive Load Approach to Collaborative Learning: United Brains for Complex Tasks (2009, background): “Intrinsic load provides a “base” load that is irreducible other than by constructing additional schemas and automating previously acquired schemas—in other words, by an increase in expertise or by deconstructing the task so that less elements interact (see Ayres 2006; Pollock et al. 2002 ).”
Teaching complex rather than simple tasks: balancing intrinsic and germane load to enhance transfer of learning (2006, background): “Pollock, Chandler, and Sweller (2002) and Clarke, Ayres, and Sweller (2005) considered mathematical learning tasks and found that, especially for low-expertise learners and high-element interactivity materials, first presenting isolated elements and only then the interacting elements yields higher…”
Facilitating Flexible Problem Solving: A Cognitive Load Perspective (2010, background): “…(“empirical”) approach could be that developing and practicing task-specific concepts and skills initially to a higher degree of efficiency may free working memory resources for the following construction and elaboration of higher level generalized knowledge structures (cf. Pollock et al. 2002).”
Interactive Multimodal Learning Environments (2007, background): “multimodal learning environments (Mayer et al. 2002a; Pollock et al. 2002).”
Example-Based Learning in Heuristic Domains: A Cognitive Load Theory Account (2009, background): “Therefore, pretraining (e.g., Mayer and Moreno 2003; Pollock et al. 2002) is sensible only in the case that the exemplifying-domain contents are hard to understand against the background of the learners' prior knowledge level.”
Taking the Load Off a Learner's Mind: Instructional Design for Complex Learning (2003, background): “For subsequent task classes, only new (additional) supportive information should be presented—extending the set of interacting elements (Pollock et al., 2002).”
An integrated critical thinking framework for the 21st century (2014, background): “By some accounts, schema-construction is essentially the same as building understanding, or comprehension (Pollock et al., 2002; Sweller, 2005).”