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John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory

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Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), was originally developed by John Sweller in 1988 (Sweller 1988), in the fields of education and instructional design. It is based on the concept that there are three interdependent systems of the cognitive load: memory systems (sensory, working and long-term memory; LTM), learning processes and types of cognitive load imposed on working memory (WM).CLT has particular relevance to medical education and it facilitate to understand how and why learners in the health professions struggle with mastering the concepts and developing toward expertise because the tasks are complex and may impose a cognitive load that surpasses the WM capacity of the learner. CLT and the human memory system are interdependable and builds …show more content…

CLT was initially developed by John Sweller in the 1980s as mentiond above has important implications for instructional design as learning requires the processing of information in WM, when the cognitive load of the task exceeds than than the capacity of WM learning suffers . Therefore, CLT prioritizes maximizing information processing in WM. Types of cognitive load:
1. Intrinsic load—load associated with the task is defined by Sweller 2010 as the number and interactivity of elements that have to be processed. (Sweller 2010).It is directly related to the learning material and is dependent on the learner 's level of expertise the more experienced the learner is the more he will be able to shrink information on high-order schemata that minimize the cognitive cost of maintaining elements in the working memory.

(2) Extraneous load load which is not essential to the task.This consists of unimportant and non-relevant activities,due to these activities the learners use their mental processes and extraneous load will be …show more content…

Two major learning processes are schemata construction and automation . initially learners construct schemata or scripts, during knowledge acquisition by activating prior knowledge, comparing new information with what they already know and elaborating knowledge, i.e. incorporating new elements into schemata already stored in LTM or obtaining already schematized information from other people such as supervisors (Taylor & Hamdy 2013).After some practice, a schema can become fully automated and can, organize information and knowledge without conscious effort, and, there will be less burden on WM. By this familiar tasks can be performed accurately , Without schemata automation, a previously encountered task will not be performed more efficiently the next time. In addition, entirely new tasks may be impossible to complete until prerequisite skills have been automated (van Merrie ¨nboer & Sweller

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