Cognitive load theory: Researching and planning teaching to maximise learning

Abstract

A patient reports acute and severe chest pain. Residents have to respond with immediate action, meaning they have to ask the right questions, perform a physical examination, think about the diagnosis – which has implications for further examination and decision making – meanwhile continue monitoring the blood pressure, pulse rate and respiration of the patient, as well as communicate with other people. Doing so requires a considerable mental effort from residents and even more so from students. In fact, by trying to focus on all aspects simultaneously, a student’s mind may be easily overloaded, and learning may be hampered. Training that focuses on only one specific aspect (e.g. blood pressure, heart, lungs and CPR) at a time may not be perceived as very complex or difficult, but may not sufficiently facilitate integration and coordination of the composite skills, which are needed for appropriate task performance. The question then is how to manage the excessive working memory load (i.e. the number of information elements that need to be processed simultaneously within a certain amount of time) that is imposed by complex tasks in such a way that students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills is improved.