Effect of Pre-Training on Nursing Student's Intrinsic Cognitive Load, Learning and Instructional Efficiency

considering cognitive load theory and using techniques for optimizing different kinds of cognitive load in designing instructional multimedia content is very important. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of pre-training on Nursing students’ intrinsic cognitive load, learning, and instructional efficiency in Physiology course.
The is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design and a control group. The population research consisted of all undergraduate Nursing students of Asadabad College of Medical Sciences in the academic year of 2016-2017. Of these, 32 students were selected through a convenience sampling procedure and were randomly assigned to experimental (n=17) and control (n=15) groups. The materials and instruments included instructional multimedia contents with pre-training effect (experimental group) and without pre-training effect (control group), learning tests (pretest and posttest) and the scale of students’ perceived cognitive load. Data were analysed by Independent T- test and analysis of covarience (ANCOVA) through SPSS
results showed that the experimental group experienced less cognitive load (M=3.41, SD=1.86) compared to the control group (M=5.03, SD=1.77), (p=0.017) but had more learning (M=14.71, SD=3.42) than the control group (M=11.60, SD=3.04), p=0.008; also enjoy more instructional efficiency (M= 0.55, SD=0.99) than the control group (M=-0.63, SD=0/98),( p=0.002).
Do pre-training in instructional multimedia content leads to reducing the intrinsic cognitive load experienced by learners, increasing their learning and instructional efficiency. Therefore, it is recommended to designers of instructional multimedia to use techniques for reducing intrinsic cognitive load, enhancing learning and instructional efficiency.