Efficiency of instruction based on the effects of cognitive load on the experimental sciences Case Study: experimental science of elementary third grade

This research was conducted with the aim of to investigate the efficiency of teaching based on the effects of cognitive load on the experimental science of elementary third grade. A quasi-experimental research design was utilized. The statistical population of this study included all female students of Kermanshah's 3rd elementary school in the academic year of 2017-2018. Two classes were selected using available sampling (Experimental N = 39 and Control N =38). In the control group, traditionally, students learned the lessons, and in the experimental and in the experimental group, students were presented content based on the cognitive load effects (Worked Example Effect and Completion Problem Effect, Attention Split Effect, Modality Effect, Redundancy effect). The efficiency of educational program was evaluated by a test of academic achievement in sciences and the one item Subjective Rating Scale (SRS) developed by Paas and Van Merrienboer (1993) was used to measure stu-dents’ cognitive load for both experimental and control group students. Confirmation of the validity of the academic achievement tool was based on the content validity and opinion of the experts and its reliability was done in the Richardson 21 method, which was 0.91 in the pre-test and 0.72 in the post-test. To analyze the statistical data, statistical descriptive statistics and inferential statistics including multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), z score and independent t-test were used by SPSS software version 22.used. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the two methods of teaching based on the effects of cognitive load and traditional method in terms of efficiency (p <0.001), which means that the academic achievement level of students who through the educational program Trained cognitive effects were higher than those trained by conventional and conventional teaching methods. Also, students in the experimental group experienced a lower cognitive load of control group students.