Pre training : To help science students learn complex information

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the use of pre-training as a strategy to help students in science learn complex information. This strategy has not been trialled in an actual classroom with information that is relevant to the students. The main theories underpinning this strategy are Cognitive Load Theory ( Sweller, 2005; Sweller, Paas & van Merrienboer 1998) and The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer 2001, 2005 ). The Cognitive Load Theory is primarily concerned with the impact of performing a particular task on the human cognitive processing system (cognitive load) and the design of instructional materials to facilitate understanding and learning. The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer 2001, 2005) is concerned with the use of words and pictures to promote meaningful learning by reducing the cognitive load of learning complex information. Information that is complex has many interacting elements that need to be held simultaneously in our cognitive processing system in order to understand it. These interacting elements have the potential to overload the system and hinder further processing which can affect understanding and learning. Pre-training is a strategy where complex information is presented in two stages to reduce the number of elements which need to be processed at any one time (Mayer and Moreno, 2003, Pollock, Chandler & Sweller, 2002). In stage one preliminary ideas are introduced without full understanding of all the information, this has the effect of artificially reducing the complexity (Pollock, Chandler & Sweller, 2002) and providing the learners with prior knowledge which they can use to make sense of the complex information when it is introduced as a whole in stage two (Mayer & Moreno 2003).