认知架构与教学设计20年(下)

Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design:20 Years Later

20世纪80年代,认知负荷理论作为一种教学设计理论被引入我国,它是基于人类认知架构中几个无争议的方面建立的。我们对工作记忆、长时记忆及它们之间关系的许多特征的认识,在引入该理论之前的几十年里已经建立完备。奇怪的是,这些知识对教学设计领域的影响有限,大多数教学设计建议的措施就好像工作记忆和长时记忆不存在一样。与此相反,认知负荷理论强调,所有的新信息首先被容量和时间有限的工作记忆所处理,然后储存在无限的长时记忆中供以后使用。一旦信息被储存在长时记忆中,工作记忆的容量和持续时间限制就会消失,从而改变我们的认知能力。到20世纪90年代末,使用该理论收集到的数据已经足够多,因此,斯维勒等发表了一份扩展分析报告。自那以后,人们进行了大量的理论和实证研究,本文试图总结过去20年的认知负荷理论,并勾勒出未来研究的方向。

Cognitive load theory was introduced in the 1980s as an instructional design theory based on several uncontroversial aspects of human cognitive architecture.Our knowledge of many of the characteristics of working memory,long-term memory and the relations between them had been well-established for many decades prior to the introduction of the theory.Curiously,this knowledge had had a limited impact on the field of instructional design with most instructional design recommendations proceeding as though working memory and long-term memory did not exist.In contrast,cognitive load theory emphasized that all novel information is firstly processed by capacity and duration limited working memory and then stored in an unlimited long-term memory for later use.Once information is stored in long-term memory,the capacity and duration limits of working memory disappear,so as to transform our ability to function.By the late 1990s,sufficient data had been collected using the theory to warrant an extended analysis, published by Sweller et al.Extensive further theoretical and empirical work have been carried out since that time and this paper is an attempt to summarize the last 20 years of cognitive load theory and to sketch directions for future research.