TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring the cognitive loads of high-school students as they learn concepts in web-based environments
AU - Chang, Cheng Chieh
AU - Yang, Fang Ying
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding of this research work was supported by National Science Council, Taiwan , under grant numbers NSC 95-2511-S-003-026-MY3, and NSC 97-2631-S-003-003 and NSC-98-2631-S-003-002 .
PY - 2010/9
Y1 - 2010/9
N2 - This study measured high-school learners' cognitive load as they interacted with different web-based curriculum components, and examined the interactions between cognitive load and web-based concept learning. Participants in this study were 105 11th graders from an academic senior high school in Taiwan. An online, multimedia curriculum on the topic of global warming, which lasted for four weeks, provided the learning context. After students worked through the curriculum, their feelings about the degree of mental effort that it took to complete the learning tasks were measured by self-report on a 9-point Likert scale. An online test and the flow-map method were applied to assess participants' concept achievements. The results showed that curriculum components such as scientific articles, online notebooks, flash animations and the online test induced a relatively high cognitive load, and that a lower cognitive load resulted in better concept achievement. Also, students appeared to adopt different learning approaches that were corresponding to different levels of cognitive load.
AB - This study measured high-school learners' cognitive load as they interacted with different web-based curriculum components, and examined the interactions between cognitive load and web-based concept learning. Participants in this study were 105 11th graders from an academic senior high school in Taiwan. An online, multimedia curriculum on the topic of global warming, which lasted for four weeks, provided the learning context. After students worked through the curriculum, their feelings about the degree of mental effort that it took to complete the learning tasks were measured by self-report on a 9-point Likert scale. An online test and the flow-map method were applied to assess participants' concept achievements. The results showed that curriculum components such as scientific articles, online notebooks, flash animations and the online test induced a relatively high cognitive load, and that a lower cognitive load resulted in better concept achievement. Also, students appeared to adopt different learning approaches that were corresponding to different levels of cognitive load.
KW - Improving classroom teaching
KW - Interactive learning environments
KW - Pedagogical issues
KW - Secondary education
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U2 - 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.03.001
DO - 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.03.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77953129168
SN - 0360-1315
VL - 55
SP - 673
EP - 680
JO - Computers and Education
JF - Computers and Education
IS - 2
ER -