雅思阅读

📖 Reading Passage

The concept of 'cognitive load' refers to the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory. In educational psychology, it is often divided into three types: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane. Intrinsic load is inherent to the complexity of the material itself, while extraneous load is generated by the way information is presented to the learner. Germane load, on the other hand, is the mental resource dedicated to constructing and automating schemas. Research suggests that instructional design should aim to minimize extraneous load, but not necessarily intrinsic load, as the latter is linked to the difficulty of the subject matter. Interestingly, studies have shown that presenting information in a poorly organized manner can increase extraneous load, thereby impeding learning, even if the content is logically sound. Therefore, effective teaching materials should be structured to reduce unnecessary cognitive burden, allowing learners to allocate more capacity to understanding and integrating new knowledge.