Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later

This section ends our reflection on 20 years of research contributing to the development of cognitive load theory. Advances relate to its psychological basis, new instructional effects, its scope and measurements informing the theory. The basis for the hypothesised cognitive architecture has been strengthened by firmly grounding it in evolutionary psychology, especially by using Geary’s distinction between primary and secondary knowledge. New instructional effects with direct practical implications for instruction have been formulated, including the self-explanation effect, the imagination effect, the isolated elements effect, the collective working memory effect and the human movement effect. In addition, the so-called compound effects have been identified; these effects indicate the limits of other cognitive load effects and we see them as being characteristic for a more mature theory. The scope of cognitive load theory has been broadened by including the physical environment as a distinct factor affecting cognitive load. Finally, new subjective and objective measurements of cognitive load have been developed, enabling researchers to make a better distinction between the different types of load.

Advances in cognitive load theory have been reflected in related theories and also set the trends for future developments. For example, the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML; Mayer 2014), focusing on the design of multimedia learning materials, includes several of the newer cognitive load effects, and four-component instructional design (4C/ID; van Merriënboer and Kirschner 2018a), focusing on the design of whole-task courses and curricula, builds especially on compound effects because the learners’ growth of expertise has direct implications for selecting optimal design principles in different stages of an educational program. Future research lines open up exciting new opportunities for the further development of cognitive load theory: working memory resource depletion questions the fixed temporal character of individual cognitive resources and might have major implications for several cognitive load effects; self-management of cognitive load and other types of self-regulated learning require us to rethink the combination of primary and secondary knowledge in teaching; physical environments that evoke stress, emotions and/or uncertainty generate new questions on how to effectively deal with cognitive load, and the special role that human movement seems to play in working memory might ask for a reconsideration of human cognitive architecture in relation to instructional design.

The viability of cognitive load theory is related to its major strengths, namely, (1) it is firmly based in our—expanding—knowledge of human cognitive architecture; (2) it is under continuous development as our knowledge of human cognition advances; (3) it leads to testable hypotheses with possible negative results leading to modifications of the theory; (4) the vast bulk of the data generated by the theory is based on randomised, controlled trials; and (5) those randomised, controlled trials provide evidence for the effectiveness of instructional procedures that can be used in a wide range of educational contexts from conventional classrooms to e-learning, teaching all age groups from very young to adult learners, with an enormous range of subject matter from medical education to English literature. Thanks to these strengths cognitive load theory has drastically changed over the years but is still in good shape, and as long as sound research is driving its further development, we see a bright future for it.

Cognitive load theory has always been intended to provide practical applications and the generation of new cognitive load effects provides an indicator of the success or otherwise of the theory. There are now treatments of cognitive load theory specifically designed for teachers and other educational practitioners, including professional books and reports (e.g. Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation 2017, 2018; Clark 2014; Young et al. 2014) and many websites, YouTube videos and other learning resources. These are intended to be accessible for people without a research background and we recommend them to anyone who wants to make his or her teaching more effective.

To conclude, we have seen important changes in cognitive load theory over the last 20 years and, given the current popularity of cognitive load theory in both educational research and the practical educational field, we expect equally important changes in the 20 years to come. In this article, we sketched some research directions that we see as promising for the further development of the theory, although we fully acknowledge that the future is unpredictable. In the 1998 article, no mention was made whatsoever of evolutionary psychology, working memory resource depletion or embodied cognition, yet, these ideas turned out to be crucial for the further development of the theory. So, let us not try to predict the future but create it by continuing to do good research.