Twelve tips for medical curriculum design from a cognitive load theory perspective

Abstract

During their course, medical students have to become proficient in a variety of competencies. For each of these competencies, educational design can use cognitive load theory to consider three dimensions: task fidelity: from literature (lowest) through simulated patients (medium) to real patients (highest); task complexity: the number of information elements in a learning task; and instructional support: from worked examples (highest) through completion tasks (medium) to autonomous task performance (lowest). One should integrate any competency into a medical curriculum such that training in that competency facilitates the students' journey that starts from high instructional support on low-complexity low-fidelity learning tasks all the way to high-complexity tasks in high-fidelity environments carried out autonomously. This article presents twelve tips on using cognitive load theory or, more specifically, a set of four tips for each of task fidelity, task complexity, and instructional support, to achieve that aim.

Simulation‐based education for novices: complex learning tasks promote reflective practice

“…The complexity of a task, as defined by cognitive load theory, is mainly determined by the degree to which its elements interact . Regulating task complexity for a given learner therefore means controlling the number of information elements and their interactions to be processed to account for the limited capacity of the working memory . The sources of cognitive load imposed on a learner can be either intrinsic or extraneous to the learning task.…”

“…4 Regulating task complexity for a given learner therefore means controlling the number of information elements and their interactions to be processed to account for the limited capacity of the working memory. 8 The sources of cognitive load imposed on a learner can be either intrinsic or extraneous to the learning task. Intrinsic cognitive load refers to the processing of new information to be learned and the construction of schemas.…”

Cognitive Load and Learning in the Study of Multiple Documents

“…In line with the finding of different subtypes of intrinsic cognitive load, future research might as well consider different subtypes of extraneous cognitive load. For instance, if stress or other emotions consume mental resources that could otherwise be used for the task at hand, that constitutes a source of extraneous cognitive load that may not or only partly be covered by the instructions (Leppink and Duvivier, 2016;Tremblay et al, 2016). Such emotions may be induced when students have to learn from multiple documents within a very limited period of time and/or when the documents concern a very complex topic or a topic that has emotional valence (e.g., certain political questions).…”

“…As the extraneous cognitive load does not contribute to learning (i.e., schema development), we should design learning materials and instruction around them such that this ineffective cognitive load is minimized (Leppink and Van den Heuvel, 2015). Under that condition, we may stimulate learners to allocate their remaining working memory resources to dealing with the intrinsic cognitive load (Leppink, 2014;Leppink and Duvivier, 2016). In fact, when extraneous cognitive load is kept to a minimum, a somewhat higher intrinsic cognitive load can result in more learning (Lafleur et al, 2015).…”

“…Research inspired by cognitive load theory has resulted in a wide variety of instructional design principles and guidelines (Van Merriënboer and Sweller, 2010;Sweller et al, 2011). These principles and guidelines have resulted in concrete models for the design of curricula, coursework, and single documents and learning tasks (Van Merriënboer and Kirschner, 2012; Leppink and Van den Heuvel, 2015; Leppink and Duvivier, 2016). Moreover, measures of intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load have been developed (Leppink et al, 2013(Leppink et al, , 2014.…”