Extraneous Cognitive Load

This type of cognitive load is associated only with searching and organizing information, which should occupy the least amount of working memory.Instructional designers should use multimedia and other cognition-oriented designs to reduce the external cognitive burden.2. The non-essential condition of learning cognitive load is related to the transfer of cognitive resources in activities unrelated to learning;It is imposed by a suboptimal design of learning tasks and information presentation.

To help students reduce the external burden of learning, teachers must help students filter out every unnecessary task that is not important to the learning process, use effective teaching strategies, and present learning in an accessible and understandable way.Here are some instructions:

Students, please remember the split-attention and Redundancy principles.Try to use a single integrated and self-explanatory source of information rather than scattered throughout the course.This ensures that learners do not have to search for information first and then interpret it as meaningful.

Do not increase the external load by displaying audio, graphics, and screen text at the same time.According to the principle of modality, learners need to “present language as speech rather than screen text” (Clark&Mayer, 2011). The combination of screen text and audio overpowers learners’ visual processing ability.Use screen text only when it is critical to learning outcomes, such as when the learner has to remember the steps of the process or learn mathematical formulas.

With the increase of extraneous load, the relationship between the effort of self-regulation and germanium load was weak.It was also found that the use of effort conditioning was effective only when dealing with low and intermediate external loads, and that this strategy was ineffective when dealing with high external loads.These results demonstrate the importance of improving teaching to reduce the external cognitive load because even high-level efforts cannot overcome poor teaching quality（Lange，2017）Teachers need to avoid unclear and confusing explanations of content, which may reduce the quality of learning.

reference

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). Applying the Modality Principle: Present Words as Audio Narration, Rather Than On-Screen Text. E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning, 99-113.

Lange, C., Costley, J., & Han, S. L. (2017). The effects of extraneous load on the relationship between self-regulated effort and germane load within an e-learning environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5).