Something to Try: Split Attention Impact

I seem to always be talking to my colleagues about student working memory and this morning I shared our weekly Teaching and Learning Tip on 'Split Attention Impact'. There is a huge amount being written about cognitive load and working memory which is very exciting but sometimes it is hard to know what we can do to reduce it (aside from saying fewer instructions).

A study in 1992 by Sweller and Chandler explored the impact of written instructions on cognitive load and specifically investigated the impact of integrated diagrams. Now their study size was small, only 20 university students, but they found that students shown integrated diagrams (top right) instead of labelled diagrams (bottom right) performed 22% better on tests. The rationale for this improvement is that by integrating the diagram, you don't split the student's attention and therefore put additional pressure on their limited working memory and cognitive load. I think when you look at the examples below, it makes sense.

Even though their sample size is small, I think this small change is worth a shot. It is a very small change to make to your teaching resources that could support students in their capacity to retain information long term.

I wonder if you could also combine this idea with the Derring effect which I wrote about before? Could you get students to come up with the most ridiculous labels for a diagram and then get them to add the correct integrated labels as a correction?

I found it hard to find integrated diagrams on internet searches - is this because it is not practical with the amount of information needed on diagrams in your subject?

Do you integrate your diagrams as standard practice?

Is this because of this research?

Do you think it could work?