John Sweller's Theory of Cognitive Load

Although quite old, John Sweller's cognitive load theory It is considered by many a revolutionary theoretical model, since it faces the idea that the more we learn at once, the better.

The basic idea of ​​this model is that our short-term memory has a limited capacity, which conditions our way of learning. When facing a new knowledge, we must first acquire it properly and, later, we will be able to perform all kinds of elevated cognitive processes.

In his theory he talks about how working and long-term memory interact in relation to new knowledge, and how these, if assimilated, are transformed into something that he called "Schemes". Let's see it next.

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What is cognitive load theory?

The cognitive load theory, formulated by John Sweller in 1988, is a theoretical model that suggests that learning is more optimal when learning conditions are aligned with human cognitive architecture. The basic idea of ​​this theory is that when we have to learn something new, our brain cannot be asked to become familiar with this new knowledge and do other cognitively demanding processes, but we must go step to He passed. First we must incorporate this new knowledge, become familiar with it and then, once internalized, we can analyze it further.

This theory explains that our working memory has a limited capacity. This limited capacity is the cognitive load, which is the amount of information that our brain can store at the same time to use it immediately.

As our working memory is rather reduced, from the theory of cognitive load it is argued that the methods of teaching should avoid overloading this memory with additional activities that do not contribute directly to the learning. John Sweller argues that, during instructional design, (this is when developing instructional experiences to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and skills in a context educational) think about how to teach the content in a way that reduces the cognitive load on students. If your work memory is overloaded by overloading it with many tasks at the same time, you cannot wait for them to finish the task having understood the entire syllabus or have completed an apprenticeship of quality.

Working memory and long-term memory

Human memory can be divided into several categories, two of which are working memory and long-term memory. Working memory is what we use when we are performing any task, in which we temporarily store the information with which we are working immediately. On the other hand, long-term memory is that composed of well-established knowledge, that is, it is what we remember relatively well after a long period of time.

When we are studying or learning to do something, the new knowledge passes through working memory. The conscious processing of new information implies a certain cognitive load on working memory. Depending on how many times we have reviewed it or if we have understood it correctly, this new information will be stored in long-term memory in the form of schematics, but only if this information has been properly processed.

As we mentioned, working memory is limited. If you are cognitively overloaded, that is, you are trying to learn many things at the same time or you are trying to do several very complex cognitive processes at the same time, we cannot process the information efficiently since we do not have sufficient resources to assimilate everything properly. The more things we have to learn at the same time, the more deficient will be our processing of new information.

This does not mean that there are not people who can learn several things at the same time. Either because they have more capacity to process a greater cognitive load or simply because they work hard There are people who can really learn something by doing various activities or studying different things at the same time. time. But despite this, most people, when they have to learn many things at the same time and do not understand any of them, they end up getting frustrated, overwhelmed and their performance is lower than desired.

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Schemes

Within his theory Sweller talks about "schemes", which they are combinations of different elements that function as the most basic cognitive structures that form an individual's knowledge. John Sweller formulated this idea based on learning about George Miller's information processing research, in which he showed that short-term memory was limited in terms of the number of items it can consciously contain and be analyzed simultaneously.

In his theory Sweller considers that these schemas, which would be the contents of long-term memory, are sophisticated structures that allow us to perceive, think and solve problems instead of a group of random or more or less related data learned by heart and detached. Thanks to these schemes we can handle multiple elements as one and allow us to perform all kinds of complex cognitive processes once this information is well established in our memory.

The acquisition of new schemes and their progressive sophistication is something that happens throughout life, since we never stop learning. In fact, these same patterns can contain within them other patterns similar to how matrioshka dolls do. Thus, several of these structures of knowledge can be assembled into one, allowing with experience and a greater posterior mastery handle several concepts at the same time, assuming a lower cognitive load thanks to having greater domain.

In fact, It is the degree of mastery in certain knowledge and its "materialization" in mental schemes that we can differentiate between an expert person and a novice. The novice has not yet acquired the schemes of a certain knowledge, that is, he has yet to learn them, while the expert already has them well established. The expert can compare and analyze them in depth with relative little effort, the novice cannot do these mental processes without investing great energy and cognitive resources, since he has not mastered them yet and needs to make a great effort to even understand them.

Example of cognitive overload

To better understand what the cognitive load theory says let's see an example in which two cases are exposed, one with cognitive overload and another in which one knows how to avoid this situation, which could perfectly occur in any classroom of any institute.

Let's imagine we are in a philosophy class. The teacher explains at the beginning of the course that one of the objectives of the course is for students to be able to examine critically various philosophical systems, taking an extensive view of the history of Western philosophy by the time the course finished and I have had the opportunity to learn about the main currents of thought from classical Greece to the XXI century.

Case 1

As soon as the course begins, the teacher tells his students that they should begin by analyzing the theories of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, authors that they will find already explained in the book. The teacher tells them that he is not going to explain them in much detail in class because he considers them so famous that he hopes his students will understand them on their own. The teacher encourages your students to take responsibility for their own learning, learning about these philosophers while analyzing and comparing them.

However, the teacher has overestimated the knowledge and ability of his students. He thinks that students will be able to quickly analyze the theories of these three philosophers because he assumes that their currents of thought are already well internalized, although this is not the case. The students, as they do not master the philosophy of these three thinkers, are faced with a truly daunting task and, furthermore, they do not know very well how to study them.

To begin with, the three themes of the authors are read without dedicating the proper study, since the professor has insisted that they compare these three philosophers, not that they learn them. As a result of that, students read the three topics and pretend to make a comparison table with the three, with the problem that at the end of the reading it gives them the feeling that they have read exactly what themselves, they have not understood anything and have to review and revise to see what similarities and differences find. The problem is that in order to compare them to the three philosophers we must first know them.

The overload occurs because in the working memory of these students we have to learn, or minimally know, the life, work and philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle while, at the same time, they try to make a process as complex as it is compare them. They cannot because to begin the first step, which is to have created a complex scheme for each of these three authors, they have not done it and they cannot compare anything in conditions.

Case 2

The teacher begins the class by explaining the philosophy of Socrates, mentioning all of his life, work and thought of him, making sure that the students have learned about it and that they demonstrate it by doing a work on the life of this philosopher. In the next two topics the same will be done, but explaining Plato and Aristotle. Once the three philosophers have been seen and understood, knowing their lives, work and, especially, your points of view it is time to compare them.

Learning the philosophy of each of the three was the first step, that is, creating a mindset. As they have progressed through the syllabus, the students have internalized the postulates of the three classical philosophers, having a mental scheme for each of them. At first, when they were learning about the life of, for example, Plato, these new knowledge were in working memory, implying a certain cognitive load. However, as this load was relatively low and easy to handle, they were able to process it and put it into long-term memory.

Now that students know about the philosophy of the three philosophers they can easily compare it. Unlike case 1, in this case the comparison implies a lower cognitive load since they have dominion over the thought of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, now being the cognitively demanding task to put them in common and compare them, not to learn them since that is already done.

Implications of the cognitive load theory

Every teacher wants his students to learn complex ideas and know how to use them in a thoughtful and creative way, in fact, this is the goal of education. However, teachers must be aware that everything takes time and that to perform a cognitively high task such as problem solving and deep reflection first you have to know what is going to be analyzed.

It should start from the most basic definitions and ideas progressively going to the most complex ones, developing schemes along the way that, once well acquired, can be analyzed and compared.

Cognitive load theory provides a general framework for how learning should be encouraged and has many implications when designing educational curricula. Those who are in charge of organizing educational content, be they teachers, psychopedagogues or any other professional of educational sciences, they should take into account that the student must first be familiarized with the new contents. The new knowledge must be given structure and, once well elaborated and established, move on to more complex cognitive processes such as reflective and deep analysis.

The cognitive load theory supports explicit teaching modelssince these models tend to be in tune with how human brains learn more effectively. In explicit models of instruction, the teacher shows students very clearly what to do, how to do it, and what to do. steps should be followed, rather than waiting for students to discover on their own what steps to take or to actively discover new information.

Naturally, these models have their criticisms, such as neglecting the fact that students can play an active role in their own learning, discovering on their own and using creativity and inventiveness to find new solutions to all kinds of problems. However, it is true that there are certain subjects and lessons in which it is preferable to break down learning into smaller and more digestible steps to facilitate its acquisition.

Knowledge and critical thinking

One of the most interesting aspects of the theory is that you must first "know things" in order to later be able to think critically about them. The information can be processed by carrying out two processes: the acquisition of knowledge and the resolution of problems. These two processes are fundamental to learning, but they must be done separately so as not to overload our working memory and avoid poor information processing.

Sweller's model is critical of teaching in which learning is abused through resolution problems, especially if you have not previously learned or familiarized yourself with the topic related to the problem sort out.

It is common for the acquisition of knowledge and the resolution of a certain problem to end up overlapping in this style of teaching, making the student not learn anything or know how to solve the problem that is raises.

Problem solving occupies a wide brain bandwidth, so to speak. What is meant by this is that solving a problem implies a high cognitive load, it loads the which will have to compete with another burden that of acquiring new knowledge in case there is no learned. If certain schemes have not been acquired, it is very difficult to do complex processes with them.

Bibliographic references:

• Sweller, J., van Merrienboer, J., & Paas, F. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10, 251-296.
• Sweller, J. (2003) Evolution of Human Cognitive Architecture, In The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Volume 43. Brian Ross (eds.). San Diego: Academic Press.