Cognitive load theory has been designed to provide guidelines intended to assist in the presentation of information in a manner that encourages learner activities that optimize intellectual performance. The theory assumes a limited capacity working memory that includes partially independent subcomponents to deal with auditory/verbal material and visual/2- or 3-dimensional information as well as an effectively unlimited long-term memory, holding schemas that vary in their degree of automation. These structures and functions of human cognitive architecture have been used to design a variety of novel instructional procedures based on the assumption that working memory load should be reduced and schema construction encouraged. This paper reviews the theory and the instructional designs generated by it. KEY WORDS: cognition; instructional design; learning; problem solving.

Graphical displays are frequently used to express quantitative information in texts, but viewers are sometimes unable to comprehend and learn the relevant information. According to a cognitive analysis, graph interpretation involves (a) relatively simple pattern perception and association processes in which viewers can associate graphic patterns to quantitative referents and (b) more complex and error-prone inferential processes in which viewers must mentally transform data. Experiment 1 establishes that graphs can be redesigned to improve viewers' interpretations by minimizing the inferential processes and maximizing the pattern association processes required to interpret relevant information. In Experiments 2 and 3, the researchers isolated one important factor that affects viewers ' interpretation (i.e., the perceptual organization of the information in graphs). If relevant quantitative information is perceptually grouped to form visual chunks (because relevant data points are either connected in line graphs or close together in bar graphs), then viewers describe relevant trends. If relevant information is not perceptually grouped, viewers are less likely to comprehend relevant trends. Graphs are ubiquitous in textbooks, scientific journals, and the popular print media (Kaput, 1987; Kosslyn, 1994; Mayer, 1993b; Mayer, Sims, & Tajika, 1995), but people can have difficulty interpreting and explaining quantitative information depicted in graphs (Culbertson & Powers, 1959;

How can students be helped to understand scientific explanations of cause-and-e!ect systems, such as how a pump works, how the human respiratory system works, or how lightning storms develop? This chapter reviews some encouraging evidence that multimedia learning environments can promote constructivist learning that enables problem-solving transfer. It begins with a description of a multimedia learning scenario, a cognitive theory of multimedia learning, and a set of design principles that lead to constructivist learning. Then, results from more than 40 studies are reviewed. In combination, these studies explore the conditions under which multimedia environments promote problem-solving transfer of scientific and mathematical principles. The concluding section addresses the problem of how multimedia instructional messages can be designed to promote problem-solving transfer.