Cognitive load theory and aging: effects of worked examples on training efficiency

In the paper

“The similarity between the interaction patterns of cognitive load and training time furthermore suggests that training time might as well be used as a component in calculating training efficiency (see Pollock, Chandler, & Sweller, 2002).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  In Results and Discussion, the paper reports instruction-time and mental-load results for the same instructional conditions. It calculates instructional efficiency from performance and mental-load ratings, but the available passages do not establish that similar interaction patterns justify using training time in that calculation. (LLM, conf=0.77)

  cites Pollock, Chandler, & Sweller, 2002 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“Within the age groups and between the training conditions, there were no significant intelligence differences.”

In the paper

“In fact, the employed worked examples were not effective enough to evoke a significant performance enhancement in either age group, which is contrary to previous research (Paas, 1992;Paas & Van Merrie ¨nboer, 1994b;Pillay, 1994;Ward & Sweller, 1990).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Paas, 1992 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Paas & Van Merriënboer, 1994b
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Pillay, 1994 source

In the paper

“More than that, the interaction between Age Group and Training Format, F(1, 50)=6.94,MSE=2.23,pϽ0.05, suggests a disproportional 'decrease' in SCL for the elderly participants.”

In the paper

“The analysis of variance reveals an effect of Age Group, F(1, 50)=36.27,MSE=0.92,pϽ0.001, as well as an interaction between Age Group and Training Format, F(1, 50)=5.45,pϽ0.05, which is in accordance with Hypothesis 1.”

In the paper

“Furthermore, there is an effect of Age Group, F(1, 50)=13.43,p=.001, but no effect of Training Format, F(1, 50)=1.66,pϾ0.05.”

In the paper

“However, there is neither an effect of Training Format nor an interaction (see Table 2).”

In the paper

“However, there is no interaction between Age Group, Training Format, and Transfer Distance, F(1, 49)=0.10,MSE=0.19,pϾ0.05, which is not in line with Hypothesis 2.”

In the paper

“With respect to Computation Span, there were no differences within the age groups and between the training conditions.”

In the paper

“As can be seen in Fig. 4, the efficiencies of both training formats are positive for the young participants and negative for the elderly participants.”

In the paper

“This holds for both Near-Transfer Performance, F(1, 50)=10.98,MSE=.00, pϽ0.01, and Far-Transfer Performance, F(1, 49)=44.09,MSE=.05, pϽ0.001.”

In the paper

“Where the young participants had a mean score of 4.97 (SD=1.33), the elderly scored no more than 3.21 (SD=0.98).”

In the paper

“However, both worked examples and conventional problems required relatively little cognitive load and led to almost the same performance level, which is reflected by the positive efficiency scores.”

In the paper

“However, contrary to the young participants, for whom the Worked Examples condition appears to be relatively inefficient, the elderly display a substantial efficiency 'gain' in the Worked Examples condition relative to the Conventional Problems condition, the latter of which remains highly inefficient.”

In the paper

“Performance was especially poorer in the more complex far-transfer domain, which is a confirmation of earlier research findings (Czaja & Sharit, 1993;Gilinsky & Judd, 1994;Lorsbach & Simpson, 1988).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Czaja & Sharit, 1993 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Gilinsky & Judd, 1994 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Lorsbach & Simpson, 1988 source

In the paper

“The old participants were less efficient, performed poorer, and showed higher levels of cognitive load and training time than the young (see Tables 1 and 2).”

In the paper

“The analysis of variance reveals main effects for the factors Age Group, F(1, 50)=65.73,MSE=2408.00,pϽ0.001, and Training Format F(1, 50)=28.72,pϽ0.001.”

In the paper

“Working-memory abilities were assessed with Salthouse and Babcock's (1991) computation-span test, which is a variant of the well-known reading-span test (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Salthouse & Babcock, 1991 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Daneman & Carpenter, 1980 source

In the paper

“That is, a training format is considered efficient if a relatively low mental effort results in a relatively high performance, whereas a training format is considered inefficient if a relatively high mental effort results in a relatively low performance.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Paas & Van Merrienboer, 1993 source

In the paper

“In sum, CLT-based training formats optimize learning by making an efficient use of the available cognitive capacity, thereby directing the learner to the essentials of the subject matter and stimulating the construction of cognitive schemata.”

In the paper

“In a nutshell, CLT claims that an optimal use of working memory requires a maximum number of mental operations that directly contribute to the learning process and a minimum number of operations that do not contribute to the learning process.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1988 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1994 source

In the paper

“According to Paas and Van Merrie ¨nboer (1993), the ratio between invested mental effort and test performance can be interpreted as the efficiency of a training format.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Paas & Van Merrienboer, 1993 source

In the paper

“Luch-ins' (1942) classical water-jug problem appeared to meet these requirements.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Luchins, 1942 source

In the paper

“Participants from both groups were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions (n=15 for the young; n=12 for the elderly).”

In the paper

“CLT is directly concerned with the limits of working memory.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1988 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1994 source

In the paper

“To check the intellectual comparability of the experimental groups, a shortened version of the Groningen intelligence test (GIT; Luteijn & Van der Ploeg, 1983;Snijders & Verhage, 1962) was administered.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Luteijn & Van der Ploeg, 1983
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Snijders & Verhage, 1962

In the paper

“A third decline concerns the ability to inhibit irrelevant or distracting information (Allen, Madden, Groth, & Crozier, 1992;Hasher & Zacks, 1988), which is likely to withhold older people from the proper processing of information that is relevant for the task at hand.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Allen et al., 1992 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Hasher & Zacks, 1988 source

In the paper

“If this process recurs, the result is an accumulation of schemata and a lowering of the perceived task complexity (Van Gerven, Paas, Van Merrie ¨nboer, & Schmidt, 2000).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Van Gerven et al., 2000 source

In the paper

“First, due to a reduction of the working-memory capacity (Salthouse & Babcock, 1991;Wingfield, Stine, Lahar, & Aberdeen, 1988), less information elements can be processed, which undermines comprehension and learning of complex material.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Salthouse & Babcock, 1991 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Wingfield, Stine, Lahar, & Aberdeen, 1988 source

In the paper

“For novices, who have not yet acquired extensive cognitive schemata, problem solving turns out to be a rather ineffective means of learning, because it imposes an extremely high extraneous cognitive load (Sweller, 1988), whereas the level of germane cognitive load remains relatively low.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1988 source

In the paper

“A 9-point symmetrical category scale was used as a subjective cognitive-load (SCL) measure (after Paas, Van Merrie ¨nboer, & Adam, 1994).”

• Also stated in: § 5.2.3. Subjective cognitive-load scale · boosted

  “Paas and Van Merrie ¨nboer (1994b) evaluated the scale as a highly reliable and sensitive instrument for the assessment of cognitive load (a=.82).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Paas, Van Merrienboer, & Adam, 1994 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Paas & Van Merrienboer, 1994b

In the paper

“Second, the overall processing speed decreases (Cerella, 1990;Fisk & Warr, 1996;Myerson, Hale, Wagstaff, Poon, & Smith, 1990;Salthouse 1993Salthouse , 1996)), which hinders the simultaneous activation of mutually referring information elements.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Cerella, 1990 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Fisk & Warr, 1996 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Myerson et al., 1990 source

In the paper

“With respect to the elderly, a possible explanation for this finding is the frequently observed phenomenon that old adults display far more statistical variance than young adults on various cognitive tasks (Anstey, Stankov, & Lord, 1993), so that subtle differences between conditions tend to get overshadowed.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Anstey, Stankov, & Lord, 1993 source

In the paper

“According to CLT, studying worked examples is a more efficient means of training complex skills than solving conventional problems.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1988 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sweller, 1994 source

In the paper

“These results are in accordance with Salthouse and Babcock's (1991) study, in which a gradual age-related decrease of computation-span scores was found.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Salthouse and Babcock's (1991) source

In the paper

“The interaction pattern, depicted in Fig. 5, suggests that the elderly participants are disproportionally favored when studying worked examples, which supports Hypothesis 1.”

In the paper

“Although the nearand far-transfer problems reflected different levels of complexity, the complexity of the near-transfer problems could have been already that high that no differential effects were obtained.”

In the paper

“It seems that the predicted interaction was not obtained, because the near-transfer problems, which were supposed to be rather simple, were in fact experienced as rather complex by the elderly.”