#edureading article 2: Cognitive Load theory and test design

The article covered two core elements, Cognitive Load Theory, the popular buzz word of the time and excellent work produced by the CESE Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, whose paper ‘Cognitive Load Theory: Research that teachers really need to understand’. Giving a clear summary of this theory and the range of effects within the theory, in a brief but precise manner.

Then the article follows with a clear summary of how these theoretical ‘effects’ can and should be applied to test design in a more lengthy method that involved a wider range of considerations than CLT which is most often applied to task sheets and teachers direct instruction.

This article as chosen for its brief and clear summary of Cognitive Load Theory and its neat connection to good test design made this article clear and meaningful. Teachers were asked to link theory to their practice and made a range of interesting connections to their teaching areas.

There was a large focus on technology-focussed connections such as screen-casting being used to produce clear examples without redundancy. Note-taking and using tools to allow for modified tasks and inclusive practices for students to access.

The most popular assumption was the dual channel assumption as a way to make information clear and accessible for students.

The test focussed prompts showed many concerns about broad macro and system level tests, considerations of standardisation and modification for individual students. Much discussion of the usefulness of these types of standardised tests considered the issues around the quality and accessibility of these tests rather than their mere existence in the first place.

Ange expressed that formal testing was not really needed at the primary school level due to the high proportion and quality of face-to-face teaching time and the strong relationships developed as a result.

Nicholas’ depiction of France was on of limited standardised testing and a relatively laisse faire and hands-off approach to teachers work more generally which appealed to the Australian teacher participants and myself especially.

Dave contrasted this focus on testing in a standardised and regular way in the United States of America and the narrowing that followed as a result of this.

 The article closed with a series of guidelines for producing tests that were accessible to students and showed a consideration of the principle of cognitive load theory. Some participants spoke of applying these ideas directly to their own work in meetings producing tests that was heartening.

Allowing students to self-pace their work was identified as a strength of a number of the participating teachers and this was achieved almost exclusively through a range of technological means.

The expert reversal effect was on that was grappled with by many of us teachers, as it is both logical and counter to intuition, in the way that it requires teachers to modify the work set for different sets of students based upon their abilities and therefore causes problems for teachers and their delivery of this type of work.

Text and PowerPoint set-up and construction with clear cues, highlighting and removing extraneous materials was covered as a common area for growth and development for most teachers. Generally speaking the impression was that teachers were aware of these principles, but by the nature of our love for our various subjects and the limits of time available to use, meant that we often broke these rules, or rather put in extraneous information fueled by passion to share our knowledge and subject area with our students, or to entertain. These ideas are definitely worthy of another exploration in a further months article.

The final prompt called for further research and exploration of this theory drew out some responses that showed a good understanding of the types of research being done and also the texture and quality of cognitive load theory as an approach to researching.

For example, the use of flipped learning and the possibility that the multimodal elements of the video meant that the expert reversal effect might be avoided by allowing students control over accessing the content, the speed that they did so and so forth.

A common issue or complaint was differing between the germane load, extraneous and intrinsic was something that was raised by many participants. This is something that has been moved away from by the researchers who developed CLT, notably Paul Kirschner.

Ilja questioned the complexity of emotions, state and levels of arousal that students bring to a task, test or class as something that is in need of further exploration and pulls at the core thread of CLT, which is that it is largely produced effects among adult, university studying students and in ‘laboratory conditions’ which is something that cannot be said for the majority of classes where we ply our trade as educators.

Shawtima questioned how this theory might fit within other theories and cause issues around certain areas as a result, a topic which was explored later, in the article where Inquiry-based and problem-based learning is attacked by Sweller as ‘minimally guided instruction’.

The article was an excellent synthesis of the theoretical elements of cognitive load theory but applying them to the world of real-world teacher practice, albeit in the much more controllable and manageable element of test paper design.

In much the same way that CLT is most often related to PowerPoints, Flipped Learning videos and Tests simply because these things are solid variables with minimal change that can be shared across different populations and be held stable in their form and make-up.

This may explain part of the attraction of this theory, as many of the most engaged and active teachers, at least on the online space, are also by definition and experience those teachers who tend moreso towards the more technological elements of teaching and their classroom practice reflects this.

Cognitive Load Theory is persuasive and popular because it combines things that expert teachers could be able to enunciate clearly if asked, similar to Rosenshine’s principles of instruction. It is also persuasive because it makes teaching seem like something that can be pinned to a corkboard and studied in isolation of the range of social, cultural, emotional and personal elements that make teaching more art than science and also those things that make teaching so compelling, complicated and interesting.

For this article, the 48 minutes of teachers responses were edited into a video with the prompts being asked that can be reviewed for those interested in engaging with this research and linking it to other teachers thoughts and practices.    

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