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Reducing Cognitive Overload for a Better User Experience

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Reducing Cognitive Overload for a Better User Experience

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This article gives some great examples of how to use the cognitive theories discussed to better organize your website. This can be extremely useful for librarians as we work to improve the library's website.

Retrieved February 10, 2019 by Melanie M.

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About The Author

Danny is Founder & CEO of LemonStand a web designer friendly eCommerce platform. He's worked with hundreds of designers, developers and online ... More about Danny...

The best user experience is the one the user doesn't notice. It appears smooth and simple on the surface, but hundreds of crucial design decisions have been made to guide, entertain and prevent trouble. If the user experience design does what it's supposed to do, the user won't notice any of the work that went into it. The less users have to think about the interface or design, the more they can focus on accomplishing their goal on your website. Your job as a designer is to give them a straight path to their goal by clearing out the obstacles beforehand.

The best user experience is the one the user doesn't notice. It appears smooth and simple on the surface, but hundreds of crucial design decisions have been made to guide, entertain and prevent trouble.

If the user experience design does what it's supposed to do, the user won't notice any of the work that went into it. The less users have to think about the interface or design, the more they can focus on accomplishing their goal on your website. Your job as a designer is to give them a straight path to their goal by clearing out the obstacles beforehand.

"Getting in the way of a speeding freight train usually doesn't end well. It takes a lot of effort to shift the course of something with that much momentum. Rather than forcing people to divert their attention from their primary task, come to where they are."
- Luke Wroblewski, Product Director at Google

After all, consider the alternative. Complicated and confusing interfaces force users to find solutions to problems that shouldn't be there in the first place. A user who feels confused by the options, the interface, the navigation and so on will likely feel overwhelmed in their thinking process. Even momentary pauses are enough to rip users back into the reality that they're sitting in front of their computer.

Further Reading on SmashingMag:

Meet Smashing Book 6 - our brand new book focused on real challenges and real front-end solutions in the real world: from design systems and accessible single-page apps to CSS Custom Properties, CSS Grid, Service Workers, performance, AR/VR and responsive art direction. With Marcy Sutton, Yoav Weiss, Lyza D. Gardner, Laura Elizabeth and many others.

Table of Contents →

This excessive thinking is called cognitive overload, and here we'll explain how you can avoid it. First, we need to explain what exactly in our brains is at risk of being overloaded.

The Scientific Roots Of Cognitive Overload

Cognitive load refers to the total amount of information your working memory can handle. Cognitive overload happens when your working memory receives more information than it can handle comfortably, leading to frustration and comprised decision-making.

But what does that mean, really? What exactly is working memory? And what does this have to do with design? The first step is to understand the origin of cognitive load theory.

John Sweller and Cognitive Load Theory

While the study of cognition dates back centuries, it wasn't until the 1980s that Australian educational psychologist John Sweller applied the research to instructional design. Sweller sought to discern the best conditions for learners of any kind to retain the information they were taught. In other words, what are the best strategies for making a lesson stick?

Sweller's work culminated in the 1988 publication of " Cognitive Load Theory, Learning Difficulty, and Instructional Design" (PDF), reworked and republished later in 1994. His work incorporated the data organizational constructs known as schema and outlined both effective and ineffective teaching methods, but his findings on the limitations of working memory are what designers tend to find most useful.

In many ways, Sweller's work expanded on the information processing theories of George Miller, a cognitive psychologist and linguist of the 1950s who tested the limits of short-term memory. Miller's research has since ingrained itself in digital design, especially the technique of chunking, discussed later in this article. Miller was also responsible for the paper " The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" (PDF), which prompted many designers to limit menu items to between five and nine - although this technique has since been demoted in digital design.

While these strategies were originally intended for the field of education, they apply equally to user experience (UX) design. As we'll explain, the same techniques that enhance memorability and learning also reduce user annoyance.

Working Memory

What if every time you wanted to open the fridge, you had to answer a Sphinxian riddle like, "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?"

It would get old after a while, right? But according to cognitive load theory, that's the same kind of frustration users feel with poor UX design.

(Image: Erika Wittlieb) (View large version)

To understand cognitive load theory, you have to understand working memory, the brain activity used to complete a task in the moment. Working memory must sort through all external stimuli and short-term memory items, as well as draw from long-term memory if needed. Think of working memory as computer RAM and long-term memory as the hard drive.

Working memory and short-term memory are often used interchangeably, but they are slightly different. Working memory handles the processing of information, whereas short-term memory is more like a scratch pad for information that's important but not important enough for long-term memory.

Let's look at this very article to explain the differences. As you're reading, you might come across an unfamiliar concept in blue text. Your working memory needs to know what the concept in blue text means in order to comprehend the greater meaning of the article. Your long-term memory knows that blue text means a link, so your working memory knows to click the link for more information. At the same time, your short-term memory remembers your place in the article, so that you're not lost when you return from the external page - but by tomorrow morning, that location will have been forgotten.

Applications in Design

The influential writer Steve Krug is the one who popularized the application of cognitive load theory to web design. His book Don't Make Me Think is considered a seminal work by many designers.

Among the many valuable lessons in the book, here are some of our favorites:

Every page should be self-explanatory, because users are just as likely to enter your website from the middle as from the home page.

Users tend to "satisfice" - that is, take the first or easiest solution to their problem, instead of the best. Moreover, as creatures of habit, users will continue to use that same solution over and over, without ever considering a better option.

Usability is adequate when a person of average ability or experience can use the system to accomplish their goals.

Much of web usage is motivated by a desire to save time. So, users will frequently adopt a shark's "keep moving or die" mentality.

The back button is the most-used feature of web browsers.

Even if it's never used, a home button visible on the screen gives users a sense of reassurance.

Besides Krug, many others have elaborated on the role of cognitive load theory in design, including the usability gurus at Nielsen Norman Group.

To summarize, every time the user has to pause to think while browsing a website - even for an instant - their working memory is weighed down. Questions like "Is this clickable?," "Where's the home button?" and "How do I save?" can ruin the user's experience.

The Most Common Causes of Cognitive Overload

Many design variables have the potential to tax the user's brain, and many more variables in the user's external life and environment are beyond your control. A user could be worried about a work presentation the next day, or there could be loud construction right outside their window - these things will drain their working memory, regardless of how simple your website design is.

And let's not forgot that each user has a different capacity for working memory. Easygoing users will be able to focus on your website better than those who stress about every little thing. Users who don't regularly go online will have to think more than experienced web users.

While we can't universally quantify cognitive overload, we can isolate the design mistakes that mostly commonly cause it. Below, we've categorized the most prevalent types found in web design, along with the best practices for avoiding them.

1. Unnecessary Actions

Every step the user takes adds to their cognitive load. Too many unnecessary actions will derail the user's train of thought or irritate them. Because the user's working memory is focused on accomplishing specific goals, unnecessary actions force the user to put in more effort, which entails dedicating more working memory to the task, for no good reason. At the very least, these unnecessary steps will test the user's patience.

Speed and pacing are essential considerations for minimizing cognitive load. Users want to accomplish their task at a brisk, purposeful pace, so remove any lag beforehand.

Users like to know what they're getting into before submitting their email address, but Touch of Modern's gatekeeper demands registration before... anything! This first mandatory and unnecessary action will scare away a sizeable chunk of potential users.

Solutions

Here's a great exercise for finding unnecessary actions: List every step a user must do to complete a task. For example, sending an email might look like this:

1. Click the email icon.

2. Click in the "Send to" input field.

3. Type the email address.

4. Click in the "Subject" input field.

5. And so on.

Now, rescan the list and look for redundancies. Get any ideas?

You could remove step 2 entirely by having the cursor start in the "Send to" field automatically. This will save the user the trouble, however slight. Every step you eliminate is a win.

Let's consider Google's home page. The cursor starts in the search field, so all the user has to do is start typing. These micro-interactions add up over the entire experience, so don't ignore them.

2. Overstimulation

Cluttered, chaotic and otherwise distracting interfaces can derail a user from their task at hand. Just like it's hard to focus when several people are talking to you at once, on the web it's hard to focus when too many images, animations, icons, ads, text types and bright colors are fighting for your attention.

Remember that one's working memory must sort through external stimulus as it moves forward to its goal. Every distraction, especially a visually domineering one, demands a piece of the user's attention.

LINGsCARS might be an extreme example, but you can see how quickly the competing elements, such as bright colors and motion, attack the senses. Even two simultaneous animations in two different areas of the screen threaten to overstimulate the user.

Solutions

For starters, get rid of everything that's not essential. Keeping only what's necessary is advantageous in general, reducing loading times and streamlining the experience. Even more important, a study on how aesthetics affect a website's first impression (PDF) found that users prefer simple websites over visually complex ones.

You can also diversify your content for balance. Too much of one type (say, text or images) is overbearing. Use a fair mix of visual content - images, videos, infographics, etc. - to create harmony on the page and make it easy for the user to comprehend.

The film and TV website IMDb could have easily leaned heavily on visual content, but instead it balances it with equal amounts of textual content.

Once you've boiled down a page to its necessities, organize those elements in a way that's instantly comprehensible to the user. Layouts with symmetry or constructive asymmetry display information in a way that's quicker to understand, which is to say, in a way that demands less effort of the brain. Not only are symmetry and smart asymmetry pleasing to the eye, but their structure makes the interface easier to interact with.

See how Groupon offsets its vertical menu of text categories (middle left) with a text description of the featured frozen yogurt deal (middle right)? The use of photos and color blocks creates a structured and satisfying hourglass shape, pinched in the middle by text.

Symmetry is more than just about putting identical layouts on both sides of the screen. It's about balancing visual weight and visual direction. In this way, asymmetrical screens can still appear organized, as OTHR shows below.

Reducing your page to only simple and non-competing elements is just half the battle against overstimulation. Don't neglect to present these elements in a straightforward layout.

3. Too Many Options (Hick's Law)

It's a bit of a paradox: Users want a lot of options, but too many options will overload their brain.

Hick's Law (or decision paralysis) tells of the phenomenon: The more options a user has, the more time they will take to make a decision. While William Hick and Ray Hyman first tested their theory in the 1950s, in the last decade their findings have been redefined for digital design. Not only have behavioral studies (PDF) confirmed Hick's Law, but recently the phenomenon's effects on the brain have been documented in a 2015 MRI study.

To understand Hick's Law as a designer, think of each option as a bright flashing light. Too many bright flashing lights will overstimulate the user, as demonstrated above.

Even the makers of popular websites, like Rakuten's, make this mistake because they don't properly understand the principle. It's the difference between giving users what they want and giving them what they think they want.

Solutions

Assuming you've already gotten rid of unnecessary and redundant options, you can group multiple options in umbrella categories. You see this a lot on department store websites, which have the widest product selections.

It's not necessarily about too many options, just too many options at one time. If you can hide some of those choices in hidden menus, drawers and pullouts, you get the best of both worlds. These mega-menus still give the user many options, but in digestible doses that won't overburden them.

However, hidden navigation menus limit discoverability, so designers in industries such as e-commerce and news must be careful. You can minimize the drawbacks of hidden menus by complementing the page with out-of-the-way links to other products (such as Amazon's "Related purchases" banner). Or you can simply do away with hidden menus by generalizing the header categories until they fit in a single navigation menu (as Apple and CNN do).

You'll also want to be careful about how you organize the website's navigation as a whole. A lot of issues with Hick's Law can be handled by managing the information architecture (IA), which we'll discuss below in the "Hard-to-Find Pages and Features" section.

4. Too Much Content

Just like the problems of overstimulation and too many options, offering too much content will pull your user's working memory in too many different directions.

You obviously want to display only the content that's essential, but for some robust websites, everything is essential. If you have too much content, you must learn how to organize it so that you don't strain users.

The problem with Arngren isn't that it offers too many products, but that it offers too many products at the same time. A little more structure and organization would do wonders for the look of the website.

Solutions

As explained above, George Miller's tactic of chunking is effective at presenting copious amounts of content in a manageable way. It's the skill of grouping data to make it easy to remember. A phone number is broken into country code, area code, a set of three digits, and a set of four digits - a string of 11 or more numbers would be too hard to memorize.

Do you want to feature a lot of product images on the home page of your online store? Instead of listing them all in separate rows and columns, display them in groups based on their type. Etsy is able to display more products on its home page by grouping them in chunks according to seller.

Chunking in text involves short paragraphs, adequate use of headings and subheadings, and ample empty space.

For long-winded form fields in which all of the data is necessary, try a multi-step form. Long forms can appear intimidating and sometimes even cause website abandonment. Break up the form's information into separate pages, or at least separate sections, to make it less imposing. Just be sure to include a progress marker so that users know how many pages to expect.

Buying a plane ticket always involves filling in a lot of data, none of which is expendable. Virgin Atlantic improves an otherwise tedious experience by breaking it up into individual steps on individual pages: selecting the flight, filling in passenger information, entering payment details, etc. Putting all of that on a single long page would overwhelm some users and increase abandonment.

5. Ambiguous Interface

The biggest culprit in cognitive overload is confusing UIs. The user should never have to spend long figuring out how to complete the action they want, nor waste brain power deciphering an icon.

Not all users are tech-savvy enough to comprehend SpeedCrunch's vague icons. Even if they know enough about computers to recognize the Windows and Mac OS X symbols at the top, those two icons in the bottom-right corner would take even Alan Turing a moment.

Solutions

Don't reinvent the wheel: Use visual cues that users already know from other websites. Users rely on common affordances and signifiers to learn controls, even on websites they've never been on before.

If that's too stifling, you could give the familiar pattern a unique spin with your brand's identity. Home Depot uses common icons but gives them the brand's telltale orange.

The same applies to microcopy. Buttons with standard labels like "Contact" and "Submit" are more recognizable than unconventional labels like "Address" or "Go." Commonly known labels facilitate the user's browsing experience, while uncommon ones make the user pause to wonder what the button does. Don't sacrifice clarity for individuality.

On the other hand, what if you have a feature never seen before? In that case, make it self-explanatory by using a real-life representation. Skeuomorphism, as it's called, bridges the gap between reality and the digital equivalent. For example, early Internet pioneers chose an envelope to represent email because envelopes are an obvious emblem of the mail system.

Also, avoid vague symbols, especially if they could be mistaken for something else or are otherwise confusing. Below, some of Issuu 's icons are familiar, but others are not. If the user has to click an icon to discover its function, they will be knocked off course.

Run your designs through a fresh set of eyes to make sure you're not missing anything obvious.

Check out Denis Kortunov's list of 10 common icon mistakes for details on what not to do - for example, icons being too similar to each other or being too complex individually.

Any interface that isn't completely obvious should include onboarding to instruct the user on how the UI works. Simple websites can get away with just a single window, especially if a memorable graphic explains the function. New and unique interfaces, though, require a more hands-on tutorial. For instance, Slack gives a complete video tour, with narration explaining what's going on.

6. Hard-To-Find Pages And Features

Even if the user has everything they need, they still might not be able to find it. That's no better than if the feature were broken. The bottom line is that the user is wasting brainpower trying to figure out what to do.

As an irreplaceable component of every user experience, navigation should be easy and stress-free. Website navigation should feel intuitive and should give the user confidence to roam freely without worrying about getting lost. Not only does this require extra work in the IA, but careful application is required to make it appear more simple than it actually is.

If you think hamburger icons are bad, Mojo Yogurt requires you to hover over the logo in the upper-left corner to reveal the navigation menu.

To its credit, a small animation reading "Navigation" orbits the logo. But with all of the color and movement on the screen, that one vague cue is not enough.

Solutions

Straighten out your IA according to the preferences of your users. Your target user group might not think the way you do, so learn from them how to organize the website. A card-sorting test reveals how your users would categorize certain pages and topics. A tree test evaluates how well your current or proposed structure is understood by real users.

For a crash course in IA, read Dan Brown's " Eight Principles of Information Architecture " (PDF). In just five pages, his overview explains the eight hard-and-fast rules every designer should know about IA, such as the principle of multiple classification (i.e. using a few different methods of categorization to accommodate users' different modes of thinking) and the principle of disclosure (i.e. showing only enough information so that users know what to expect).

You'll also want to get rid of redundancies by combining pages or menu items. For example, you don't need one page for executive bios and another for individual team members - they can go on the same page. The design studio Waaark simplifies its navigation by merging its studio introduction, team member bios and contact information as three screens on a single page.

If certain functions or features are more important than others, use visual techniques to draw attention to them. Increasing the size, adding animation, and using a flashy or contrasting color can attract the user's eye. Display information in a novel way, especially with a corresponding graphic, and make sure that, above all, it's comprehensible.

PayPal expects more returning users than new ones and caters to the former by setting the log-in button apart with an attention-grabbing white block background.

7. Internal Inconsistency

Let's say the home page of a website uses the standard blue and underlined text to indicate a link, but that another page uses only blue and no underline. Even if the user never activated the first link, they might pause on the second page to think, "Is that still a link, even though it's not underlined?" They might not even care about the link, but the split second they were distracted by the inconsistency bruises the overall UX.

Typos and grammatical errors work the same way. Remember that the best UX is unseen, but mistakes like that are often noticed.

It doesn't matter whether an element is inconsistent with the rest of the website, with other websites (when it shouldn't be, as with UI patterns) or with the user's knowledge of language and grammar. In all of these instances, the user must take a moment to consider and process, which uses up working memory.

SIPhawaii is all over the place with capitalization, font size and the inclusion of prices. And you don't even want to know what happens when you click the hamburger icon - suffice it to say, it's certainly not consistent with other websites' hamburger icons.

Solutions

Keep a consistent format throughout the website. This is a lot easier to say than to do, however, because mistakes of this nature are often unintentional.

A style guide can work wonders for consistency. It collects all of the global design decisions in one easily accessible place for quick access whenever the designer needs them. Details like the code value for the background color, the dimensions of images or the typography for headings can be easily forgotten, so making them readily available would be helpful.

For more information on building a style guide, read our in-depth overview and an actual case study on creating one.

As for typos and grammatical errors, don't just rely on the spell-checker. Always go through your content one final time before publishing. The free app Grammarly can help you spot harder-to-see errors.

A good example of both visual and functional consistency is Pinterest. No matter the style of picture in your feed, the format remains the same.

Titles, descriptions, authors, websites, pins and activity are all displayed with the same text size and typography, in the same location on each card. This dedication to consistency gives Pinterest the freedom to stagger the rows for more visual appeal, without confusing the user. If you can understand one card, you can understand them all.

Takeaways

Steve Krug famously exclaimed, "Don't make me think," which could more or less be the battle cry of the user as far as UX is concerned. Skilled UX design is aerodynamic. Any bumps on the way - such as excessive cognitive load - will drag the whole plane down. Designers need to cater to their users any chance they get, so don't make them think any more than they have to.

Was that too much information to take in at once time? Here's a summary of the takeaway points so that you don't get overloaded:

Cognitive load is any information that taxes the working memory. Cognitive overload happens when too much information hinders decision-making and the experience in general.

Use a range of content types and structured page composition to avoid visual clutter.

Hidden menus help users manage the number of options available at one time, but at the cost of discoverability.

Tactics such as chunking and step forms safeguard against cognitive overload.

Recognizable UI elements and microcopy draw on users' existing knowledge, so that they don't have to think too hard. New and unique features can be explained by onboarding.

Build your IA around how your users actually think. Usability tests like card sorting and tree testing can reveal the most intuitive navigation schemes for your target group.

Inconsistencies in visuals and functions, as well as typos and grammatical mistakes, will distract users from their overarching task.

Remove redundancies wherever you can. Also, keep an eye out for ways to minimize the number of steps users must take or the amount of effort they must expend.

(By the way, the answer to the Sphinx's riddle is "man": crawling as a baby, walking as an adult and using a cane as an elder.)

Further Reading

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Reducing Cognitive Overload For A Better User Experience

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The best user experience is the one the user doesn't notice. It appears smooth and simple on the surface, but hundreds of crucial design decisions have been made to guide, entertain and prevent trouble. If the user experience design does what it's supposed to do, the user won't notice any of the work that went into it.

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Cognitive behavioral game design: a unified model for designing serious games. 

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Cognitive behavioral game design: a unified model for designing serious games. 

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This article gives a thorough breakdown of how to include cognitive theories in each part of creating your own games and activities for the classroom and the library. It is extremely interesting and again gives the theory some practical applications.

Retrieved February 10, 2019 by Melanie M.

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THE SOCIAL COGNITIVE ELEMENTS

The social cognitive elements in CGBD are incorporated from Bandura's (2004, 2006) SCT of health promotion, which outlines five elements necessary for health-related behavior change: Knowledge, self-efficacy, goals, outcome expectations, facilitators, and impediments. Following is a brief explanation of the factors, how they are expressed in SCT, and how they are expressed in CBGD.

Knowledge

In the SCT of health behavior, this refers to the knowledge of health risks ( Bandura, 2004, 2006). However, in CBGD, it refers to knowledge the game is attempting to convey. Knowledge usually represents the overall purpose of the game, i.e., to convey the hardships faced by families in the third world, to teach children how to manage chronic disease symptoms, or to help citizens understand how their political process works. However, knowledge is not always the primary purpose. For instance, exergames often have the primary purpose of encouraging fitness using the mechanism of physical movement rather than providing knowledge about health.

Goals

Goals are twofold in CBGD. Goals can refer to the actual game goals (i.e., solve this puzzle, solve a mystery, take down a fictional corporation, etc.) and also the real-life outcome goals of the game (i.e., raise money for a charity, register to vote, learn a mathematical concept, understand the lifestyle of a different culture, etc.). One of the criticisms of the edutainment genre was that goals for play and goals for learning did not align ( Gee, 2003; Ciavarro, 2006). When the goals for game play and the goals for learning are different, learning is removed from context ( Barnes et al., 2007). Although most CBGD games are serious games, which have a goal beyond entertainment, that goal may or may not be activist. For instance, the game Third World Farmer ( http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com/index.html) has a game goal of awareness. The game simulates the life and hardships of a family in the third world via obstacles, such as sickness, educational costs, and unpredictable weather. A similar game, Half the Sky ( http://www.facebook.com/HalftheGame), aims to promote awareness of the hardships of women, however there is also a mechanism to donate to a women's charity as you play the game. This is an activist goal that is designed to go beyond awareness and prompt the player to support the game's principles outside of the game.

Another application of CBGD based goal setting within games is to create a more realistic sense of goal achievement. Visual elements can simulate the passage of time. Bar meters are common ways of depicting the passage of time in-games, but they are primarily used to show how much time a person has left before they get a losing score on the game level. In goal setting, the bar meter can show how much time has to pass before the player can perform the action again. The bar meter can also be used to show the duration of the activity itself. This mechanism is used in The Sims, where the bar meter shows longer durations for Sim activities such as exercise and learning. This simulates that the longer you have exercised or the more you have learned, the longer it takes to get to the next goal. This scaffolding of goal attainment and time to achieve mimics life.

Outcome expectations

Outcome expectations, like goals, have a dual expression within CBGD. One set of outcome expectations is for within game actions. For instance, if a player solves a puzzle, an outcome expectation may be that a new game area is unlocked. In a simulation style game, an outcome expectation may operate as a mimic of a real-life outcome. For instance, in the game The Sims ( http://www.thesims.com/), game characters are fired if they miss too many days of work. Although the game designers did not state that The Sims is a teaching game about life, the element of getting fired for not working is a game outcome that parallels real-life outcome expectations for similar behavior.

Encouragement

In SCT, encouragement is called facilitation and/or social support. It refers to the environmental and social factors that can assist in goal attainment. An environmental facilitator would be bicycle lanes to encourage human-powered transportation, while a social factor would be an encouraging friend. Within the context of CBGD, facilitation is called encouragement, and is usually carried out within game by sounds, praise (i.e., hearing "good job!" when a mission or puzzle is completed), or even non-player characters (NPCs) acting as coaches and tutors during learning phases and giving approval for success.

Barriers

In SCT, the barrier element is sometimes referred to as impediments. These are factors that hinder goal attainment. Like facilitators, they can be environmental and social. In-games, barriers are often virtual manifestations of physical barriers, such as fences and rocks to leap over, or the implementation of puzzles which must be solved before the player can move to the next level. They can also be used as in-game assessments if the puzzles require that the player demonstrates knowledge that should have been learned earlier in the game. In simulation games, barriers, like outcome expectations, can be designed to mimic real-life situations. Simulated real-life barriers may help the player think about ways to overcome them in real-life.

To the extent that realistic barriers can be simulated within games, they can force the player to think through how he or she would handle the barrier in life. Barriers and challenges can also be used to show a barrier that is usually unseen. Re-mision, a game about cancer, simulates the inside of the body as the player fights cancer cells. This type of challenge in gaming can help players relate to the challenges they face in life by helping them to see them. This can be especially helpful with games that simulate health challenges that are not immediately felt, such as diabetes, which often causes few external symptoms. While barriers are an important part of behavior change, game-based barriers need to be designed in a way that develops the player's coping skills rather than discouraging game play.

SELF-EFFICACY - THE HIDDEN FACTOR

Self-efficacy has been shown to have a measurable effect on behavioral outcomes that is stronger than other individual social cognitive elements ( Bandura, 2004, 2006), however, it is also comprised of and affected by several other elements. Self-efficacy is the belief about one's ability to accomplish goals, and it has a symbiotic relationship with goals, social support, models, mastery, and barriers. For instance, levels of self-efficacy often define the goals that people make for themselves. When self-efficacy is high, people make more challenging goals, and vice versa ( Bandura, 2004). Conversely, when several goals are attained within the same cognitive or behavioral domain, the result is a sense of mastery, which increases self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is also increased through observational learning. Observational learning is an intrinsic process in which a person learns via observation of the actions and outcomes of others or by example. This is primarily a social mechanism that occurs with role models. Role models can be people in relationship with the learner, such as parents, teachers, siblings, or peers. According to the SCT of mass communication ( Bandura, 2001), media figures can also be role models. In CBGD, relationships and role models have been incorporated into the mechanisms section because the game can either facilitate real-life relationships if it is played with or discussed with others, or can provide direct models via NPCs in-game. Coping skills, or the increased ability to overcome barriers, have been incorporated into the enjoyment process as persistence. In CBGD, persistence is an internally motivated outcome of engagement, challenge and flow. Players are persistent because they want to complete the game. Mastery, described above as the completion of several goals within the same cognitive or behavioral domain, is often accompanied by a feeling of accomplishment, and also increases self-efficacy. As such, self-efficacy has not been incorporated into the model as a separate term, however, all of the elements of increased self-efficacy are in the model, and self-efficacy may be an either an underlying or a primary outcome of play.

SOCIAL COGNITIVE ELEMENTS IN BEHAVIOR CHANGE MEDIA

Bandura (2001) explains that SCT can be used in media in order to influence behavior change. This mechanism is what he calls a dual path of influence, in which the first path of influence is the direct influence of the message in the media on the population exposed to it. The second path of influence is on a person's social circle, which in turn influences the person by creating an environmental facilitator and a social support.

The social cognitive elements, through SCT, have been validated through creation of media that results in positive behavior change outcomes. In a movement referred to as entertainment-education, 75 SCT-based media projects were internationally distributed in order to influence behavior change for HIV prevention, gender equality, family planning and adult literacy ( Rogers et al., 1999). One of these projects, a radio show called Twende na Wakati, translated "Let's Go with the Times" was created to increase the use of family planning practices. In a two year experiment, the show was aired in five regions of Tanzania, with one area running alternate material as a control. The show featured characters as models, with some characters modeling positive behavior and ending up with good lives (outcome expectations) while other characters modeled negative behaviors and suffered consequences. One negative character in particular had promiscuous sex and did not use condoms. His fate was to die of HIV. A positive character was a nurse who dispensed health information. The show also featured transitional characters who became more open to family planning practices as the show went on, embracing them by the end. Before the study ended, the show appeared to be influential. Several fans wrote letters to the show, saying that it was very educational and that they had spoken to their spouses about family planning because of it. The show increased self-efficacy in other ways as well, with one woman writing in and saying that the show influenced her and her husband to start a business. At the end of the study period, residents in experimental areas of Tanzania showed a marked increase in self-efficacy regarding family planning, and more residents had spoken to their spouses about using it than in the control area ( Rogers et al., 1999).

SCT has also been used to successfully facilitate behavior change through video games. In a meta-analysis of 25 video game interventions to influence diet, exercise, and other health behavior, six games were specifically stated to be based on SCT, with three SCT-based games showing positive outcomes, and the other three not having completed the study at the time of the writing ( Baranowski et al., 2008). In one notable game, called Packy and Marlon, players with juvenile diabetes decreased urgent care visits after playing the game ( Brown et al., 1997). In the game, Packy and Marlon are elephants at a diabetes camp. They must go through several locations to find food and diabetes supplies that were scattered across the campground by enemy rats. Game locations include lakes, forests, mountains and even a haunted house. As Packy and Marlon reorganize their campground, they must use food and insulin logs to stay on their medication schedule and to eat according to their meal plans. Camp counselors ask them multiple-choice questions about diabetes self-care and how they would deal with several examples of social barriers. The treatment group gained self-efficacy regarding diabetes self-care, and decreased the number of urgent doctor visits related to their condition ( Brown et al., 1997).

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE ELEMENTS

The second set of elements in CBGD are based on Gardner (1983) theory of MI. MI is a multifaceted learning theory that integrates learning with activities designed to engage students according to their unique patterns of thought, called intelligences. According to Gardner, everyone has eight intelligences, and they form a profile describing how the person is intelligent. Unlike intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, there is no threshold under which a person is not considered intelligent. Each person has intelligence strengths and intelligence weaknesses ( Gardner, 2003). This approach alone may increase self-efficacy because, in the MI framework, everyone is affirmed as intelligent, but in different ways.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES IN LEARNING

Like social cognitive elements, MI elements have been tested in real learning situations, with positive results. Gardner (1999) used the MI principles in a project called practical intelligence for school (PIFS). In the project, middle school students were taught using MI principles across various domains of learning. The project emphasized interdisciplinary problem-solving by investigating how various intelligences impacted a single issue. An example would be to determine whale swim patterns (spatial) by using the trajectory of swimming (math) and the sound of the whale calls (musical).

In the PIFS project, Gardner (1999) made several observations about effective learning using MI. The best learning happened when the information was presented in a real-world type of situation and there was a purpose for learning, and the information incorporated the student's interests and allowed them to use their most salient abilities. When information was presented that was outside of the student's abilities, then the students learned best when the environment was specific to the skill being learned and they were given time to focus on a single activity.

MI based teaching techniques have also been successful in classrooms around the world, transforming learning environments in areas as diverse as United States ( Greenhawk, 1997), Turkey ( Özdermir et al., 2006), and Malaysia ( Sulaiman et al., 2011). When teachers were taught MI principles and asked to create MI based instruction, the lessons they created were activity-based and engaging for students, even though the content of the material remained the same as their traditional lessons. In one instance ( Hopper and Hurry, 2000), teachers taught their students about their intelligences and helped them discover their strengths, then allowed them to use their intelligences to create their own homework assignments regarding a topic. One student who struggled with the traditional written homework chose to perform a dramatic video piece. Others created a board game. Students who had been formerly disengaged became active in the lessons.

In a formal study of MI performed in Turkey ( Özdermir et al., 2006), two classes with fourth grade students were taught the same material by the same teacher. In the experimental class the teacher used MI based activities, while in the control class, only traditional teaching methods were used. Prior to the classes, students were tested on their intelligences (using the Teele Inventory of MIs) and on the subject to be taught (Diversity of Living Things).

In the traditional class, there was an emphasis on listening to the lecture, reading the blackboard, reading the textbook, and performing written work for homework. In the MI class, seven learning centers were created, representing each of the seven intelligences (naturalistic was not represented). During class time in the experimental group, each student spent 20 min in each of the seven learning centers, so that all students were exposed to all centers. Each learning center had its own activity relating to intelligence it represented ( Table ​Table1 1 ). Other than the MI vs. traditional activities, the content taught in each class was the same, and the learning centers were fitted with activities based on the subjects within the class, changing activities as the class moved through the curriculum. The classes spanned seven weeks, after which the students were re-tested on the subject exam. Two months post-class, they were tested on the subject again. Although the students had similar results on the Diversity of Living things pre-test, the MI group tested significantly better on both the immediate post-test and the 2-month retention test.

Table 1

Educator and game designer Squire (2006) has suggested that educators need to design experiences rather than deliver content and that it benefits students to be in charge of their own design process. What Squire describes as an optimal learning environment is what teachers and students designed when instructed to use MI theory. If what Prensky (2001) describes as "tell-test" education is the problem and immersive, game-like environments are the answer, then MI theory is the bridge between the two.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE ELEMENTS IN CBGD

In CBGD, Gardner's intelligences have been retranslated into game asset descriptions. So, while Gardner identifies musical intelligence, CBGD translates this as music and sound. Music is handled differently in a game than other sound effects. For instance, music is often used in a game introduction or as background music, while sound effects are used to help the player understand his or her environment. Sounds play to indicate that a player has done something correctly or incorrectly, or to indicate that something has changed and warrants investigation (like a sliding noise to indicate that an unseen passageway is now open). Another example is verbal intelligence, which has been translated in CBGD as words/language and narrative. Narrative refers to the underlying story of the game while words and language refer to other in-game elements. Words and language can be spoken in-game or shown on-screen. They are instantly understandable. Narrative, however, runs throughout the game and may require exposition, as more of the narrative is revealed as the player moves through the levels of the game.

While some of the MI elements are inherent to video games, like sound and graphics, they are included here as MIs in order to focus on their importance. While game designers may include these elements as part of entertainment, it is not clear that they understand that strategic inclusion of these elements may in fact facilitate learning. With this knowledge, designers can create elements that are designed to specifically contribute to the knowledge within the game. For instance, designers not using CBGD might include generic background music in a game for the purpose of establishing a general mood (i.e., happy; spooky) or simply to prevent the game from being silent. With CBGD, designers may think of how music can be used to enhance game knowledge, for instance having a score that gets slightly lower in volume the farther away the player ventures from a clue, and slightly louder the closer the player gets. Using music as a subtle in-game clue is a more active use of music to facilitate learning than generic background music. Music can also be used explicitly to communicate knowledge via song. With CBGD in mind, designers might choose to record songs with lyrics pertaining to the topic and include them either as explicit sing-a-longs or as subtle background music that holds clues and information the player needs.

The MI elements of CBGD are as follows:

Graphics

Graphics engage the visual/spatial intelligence. They are the pictures and graphic elements in a game. All graphics in a game have the potential to inform the player regarding the topic. Graphics include sets and locations as displayed in the game, as well as signs, objects, characters, etc. Graphics set the mood of the game and, while they don't have to be in three dimensions or photo-realistically detailed, they do need to have a clear meaning. In CBGD, graphics can be especially important because international audiences may not understand words in the game, whether written or spoken.

Space/positioning

This is part of the visual/special intelligence. In CBGD, it refers to the way the player moves through the game environment. In some games, the player moves through a virtual environment, such as a dungeon, a room, or a maze. In other games, the player may move through a physical environment and must visualize his or her position relative to the position in-game. As more games are developed using body-sensors in lieu of traditional handheld controllers, the potential for using space and positioning in-games will increase.

Relationships/models

This refers to the use of interpersonal intelligence with in a game. Game relationships can refer to relationships with others surrounding the game, or relationships with characters within the game. This element is also present in the social cognitive sphere in the form of encouragement and social support.

While social support is mainly person-to-person, Bandura (2001) realized that media can act as a valid source of social support as well. Bandura realized that people often model themselves after others they know, but they also model people they don't know if they are celebrities. Even fictional characters can act as behavior models.

Social support can take place in a massive multiplayer online game (MMO) guild online. MMO's often contain several hundred players, working together as teams in order to complete game quests. Teams, called guilds in the MMO world, must compete with each other in order to win the game, which often involves being the first team to build or find an important relic. A serious game MMO could include offline meets as a part of the game, encouraging real-life activism. It could also take place by having a game that already includes a social aspect. For instance, Zombies Run ( http://www.zombiesrungame.com/) is a game that promotes fitness by sending alerts to the player's phone that they are being chased by zombies. Groups can easily choose to meet at a certain place and be "chased" together.

Instead of creating a social network via the game, video games can garner social support by being associated with an existing social network. Many people take part in social networks because their friends are on them. Once on the network, some friends play games and invite their friends. Many social network games offer bonuses when a person invites a friend who joins, and some make getting new players integral to attaining game goals. Half the Sky: the game, is an example of a serious game that takes advantage of social media to garner donations and promote activism.

Music/sound

The musical element refers to any music in a game, whether background music, actual songs, or musical notes as part of a puzzle. Sound effects are also part of the musical element, as they can be used to communicate game information such as the correctness of an action, or off-screen events. Within MI theory, musical intelligence involves the ability to differentiate notes, pitch, and other elements of music. While people high in musical intelligence often play instruments, it is not necessary for the expression of musical intelligence. Simply recognizing elements of music is sufficient. For instance, a person with musical intelligence may be able to hear a song and distinguish the guitar, the violin, the piano, the bass, the harmonica and the harp as separate sounds in the music. Someone with a lesser musical intelligence may just hear a nice song, but not distinguish the instruments.

Music may also be a strong facilitator of learning as a construct. In 2011, an experiment was performed in which two fourth-grade math classes received the same math curriculum, but one group included songs related to the math concepts being taught. A standardized test was given at the beginning of the semester and again at the end. While both groups raised test scores by the end of the course, the experimental group raised scores by 57.7% while the control group raised scores by 47% ( Yoho, 2011). While music is present in almost all games, it appears to function mostly as background ambience rather than being used to actively facilitate learning. Music as a facilitator of learning for serious games needs further exploration.

Narrative

The element of story in-games is one of Prensky's (2001) six key elements of games. It is an expression of verbal intelligences within MIs theory, but it appears in CBGD as a separate element from words/language due to its unique influence in cognition and use in gaming. Narrative can be used several ways, one of which is the facilitator of situated cognition ( Van Eck, 2006), in which the player is immersed into an environment or situation where the knowledge is presented in context. Using narrative with situated cognition allows a game to remain primarily a game, so that the player can focus on playing rather than on learning ( Ciavarro, 2006). Although not designed for education, Nancy Drew video games ( http://www.herinteractive.com/index.php) often include situated learning within a narrative. For instance, in one game, players must assemble DNA model to solve a puzzle. In a different game, periodic elements need to be matched with their symbols in order to solve another puzzle. Rather than an out-of-context quiz about educational content, players need to learn the content in order to solve the in-game puzzle.

Math/numbers

This is one component of the math/logic intelligence in MI theory. In CBGD, the math/numbers element refers to mathematical puzzles that require arithmetic, calculation, or geometry. While programming involves math, and therefore video games are built on a mathematical foundation, the math involved is not always made salient. In some games, it might be beneficial to "uncover" the math as part of the game. Also, including math puzzles in a non-math game can be a way of helping non-math oriented players become comfortable with math concepts.

Physical movement

This element represents the body/kinesthetic intelligence. While the space/positioning element refers to virtual spaces, the physical movement element refers to physical spaces. Games involving this element include dance, music band, and sports games that track the body rather than use a game controller. However, many of these games involve using the body for things the body would already do, such as dance or play a sport. The games add virtual companions and instruction along with a scoring system, which makes them video games. An interesting way of incorporating CBGD with physical movement is to use the game to have the body simulate a normally non-physical concept, such as forming letters or Roman numerals as a way of solving puzzles.

Logic/patterns

This is another component of the math/logic intelligence. In CBGD, this element refers to patterns involving reason rather than numbers. One of the most common formats for this element is the mystery game in which players must use clues, interviews, and environmental information to discover inconsistencies which lead to the capture of the culprit. However, other patterns are also common, such as seeing a picture of a landscape in a building and then recognizing that landscape later in the game in another form.

Words/language

This element is part of the verbal intelligence, and refers to the use of words and language within games. Language structure can be included in-games in the form of codes, words to unscramble, replace-a-word puzzles, or by having characters find letters or other literature in which words are missing. This element also refers to the use of on-screen text to communicate information. In some games, in-game encyclopedias and reference manuals are used to convey information. In others, books and scrolls can be found and opened in scenes where the information is needed. The words and language element also includes dialog, in which written text may or may not be accompanied by a voiceover.

Humor

Humor is not listed prominently in SCT or MIs theory, but it has a significant effect in both. When learning, humor can bring new perspectives to material, provide distance from the subject being learned, and create a sense of camaraderie with the instructor ( Hovelynck and Peeters, 2003). Humor also enhances retention in learning situations. In a 14-week course, two classes were given identical video lessons with the exception that one set of lessons had integrated jokes that were directly related to the learning material. Both classes had the exact same final exams. Although the humorous elements were the only changes to the classes, the experimental class scored better on the tests. The experiment was replicated with the only change being that the first group included males and females, whereas the replicated groups were both female. The humor group once again scored higher than the control group ( Ziv, 1988).

Nature

In MI theory, natural intelligence has to do with the ability to recognize patterns and elements in nature. This person is good at separating natural elements into categories, and picking out elements of nature from their surroundings. For instance, someone with natural intelligence may look at a rocky surface and recognize a fossil of an insect whereas someone less inclined toward this intelligence would just see rocks. In CBGD, this element can be enhanced with the use of actual photos of natural objects, and photo-realistic graphics and animations. More basic animations can also use the nature element by mimicking natural movements accurately even if the graphics look less than real.

Personal reflection

This represents the intrapersonal intelligence. A person with intrapersonal intelligence has a keen sense of self. He or she is aware of what is personally motivating and what is discouraging. This person is self-aware regarding abilities and limitations. In CBGD, this element can be expressed by using situations designed to provoke empathy. One example of this is the game Darfur is Dying ( http://www.darfurisdying.com/), in which the player character has to get water for his or her village while avoiding being captured by soldiers. Other examples are city simulation games, in which players must balance their budgets, the needs of the city and the desires of their citizens. Some simulation games even mimic conditions in real-life cities and nations, taking into account the unique needs of the citizenry along with budgetary and government constraints.

THE ENJOYMENT PROCESS

In the quest to assist with the design of serious games, several authors have sought to explain what makes a game, what makes games enjoyable as well as educational ( Gee, 2003; Squire, 2006; Prensky, 2001). Several aspects of those theories map directly to other elements of CBGD. For example, Prensky (2001) delineates six key elements of games that map almost exactly to: Rules, Goals and Objectives, Outcomes and Feedback, Opposition, Interaction, and Story ( Prensky, 2001, p. 05-11). Rules can be an expression of Knowledge; Goals, Outcomes, and Opposition are mapped almost exactly; and Interaction can be a form of the relationships/role models element. In addition to finding elements that promote cognition, these researchers have found elements that contribute to enjoyment as well. Although several elements are included, there appears to be a few consistencies within elements listed as making a game enjoyable: engagement, challenge, flow, persistence, and mastery.

Engagement

Engagement is the attention-grabbing component of the enjoyment process. If the player is not engaged in the game, he or she will stop playing, thereby missing whatever learning or content is contained within it. While there are several ways of engaging players, some of the most salient include immersion ( Gee, 2003), which involves making the player feel as if he or she has entered the game world. Immersion is often accomplished using realistic graphics, including details such as water that ripples and sound effects of birds and animals. Another way of engaging players is through the mechanism of first-person perspective, by which the player can identify with the character of the game as well as immersion in the game world, often even temporarily taking on the traits of the character they are playing ( Christoph et al., 2009).

Challenge

Following engagement, players need a reason to continue playing the game. That reason is often challenge ( Gee, 2003), which is consistently ranked as a primary motivation for play ( Olson, 2010). Although life and work often present challenge, the other elements of CBGD combine within games to present challenge in a way that players find enjoyable. Another reason that challenge within games contributes to enjoyment is the presence of immediate and salient reward ( Gee, 2003; Koster, 2003). The presence of challenge, feedback, and reward contribute so much to the enjoyment of games that they are being applied to other aspects of life, such as work; a process called gamification ( Anderson and Rainie, 2012).

Flow

Many game theorists have noted the cyclical nature of challenge within games. Gee (2003) described a process in which players use prior information learned in the game to solve challenges they found later on, and recommended that easier challenges should come before more difficult ones. When skills and challenges are matched in a way that players are highly engaged and lose track of time, that is a state of flow ( Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre, 1989). Flow is not only a video game phenomenon, it is found while driving, interacting with family, and most of all through work ( Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre, 1989). Flow has also been found to be a result of self-efficacy and a facilitator of motivation ( Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre, 1989; Pavlas et al., 2010). Flow represents an optimal form of challenge, and, according to Koster (2003), it is what makes games fun.

Persistence

Persistence is one of the most important predictors of success in life ( Duckworth et al., 2007), and games can make the process of building it enjoyable. In-game design, persistence is fostered by player mistakes and the game's responses to them. Games are a way to practice making and recovering from mistakes because in-game consequences often have little to no bearing on real-life events. Furthermore, many games allow players to save before challenges are undertaken so that a failure takes them back to the point in the game where they can undergo the challenge again. Another aspect of games that encourages persistence is the long-term nature of gaming which allows a player to essentially freeze a challenge and walk away from it, returning later when he or she feels ready to try again.

Mastery

Mastery experiences are "win" experiences where the player is successful, and they are already an essential part of video games. Mastery is a component of self-efficacy, both as a contributor to self-efficacy and a result of it ( Bandura and Schunk, 1981). In essence, people choose their challenges based on their feelings about their ability to accomplish them, and the consistent accomplishment of goals increases their perceived ability ( Bandura and Schunk, 1981). Games provide a consistent mastery curve, which includes easy goals that are easily mastered and progressively leads to more difficult goals. Mastery of video games contributes to enjoyment on its own, but also may enhance enjoyment in a social aspect as players who master the more difficult levels of the game can gain respect from peers, or expand into helper roles for players on lower levels.

CBGD AND MULTIPLE GAME PATHS

The elements of CGBD can be used to engage a wide variety of players by creating several game paths in a single game. For many games, there may be several puzzles, but only one type of puzzle, one solution, a single narrative and one "win" scenario. However, introducing choice can allow gamers to choose to play with elements that appeal to them, challenge them to strengthen weaker intelligences, or alternate between the two. For instance, allowing a choice of outcomes might appeal to gamers of varying self-efficacy, with one game path that allows for manual saving intermittently and a possibly more difficult challenge that only allows for auto-saves mid-level. Some games limit the number of retries before the challenge must be restarted.

For behavior change games, an effective strategy might be to allow players to choose their own barriers. This would allow them to focus on playing through the types of barriers they will most likely face in life. A player with a strong social network may choose environmental barriers that mimic their home or work environment or vice versa. This would increase situational cognition on an individual basis.

Apart from the goals themselves, CBGD would allow choices of game path. Although some game genres are non-linear by nature, as in adventure games, others, such as casual games, have repetitive levels. Even some adventure games have integrated puzzles. Usually these puzzles are presented in such a way that the player has only one and it must be completed before advancement. A choice of two or three obstacles, each based on a different intelligence element, would allow more players to master the game.

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Cognitive behavioral game design: a unified model for designing serious games

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Video games have a unique ability to engage, challenge, and motivate, which has led teachers, psychology specialists, political activists and health educators to find ways of using them to help people learn, grow and change. Serious games, as they are ...

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Cognitive Load Theory and Library Research Guides

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Cognitive Load Theory and Library Research Guides

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This video specifically discusses what cognitive load theory is, and how to utilize the theory to use and improve library research guides. This can be extremely helpful in future library research guide creation, and might also inspire you to use other aspects of cognitivism in your work.

Retrieved on February 10th, 2019 by Melanie M.

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Cognitive Load Theory and Library Research Guides

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How Do Our Students Learn? An Outline of a Cognitive Psychological Model For Information Literacy Instruction

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How Do Our Students Learn? An Outline of a Cognitive Psychological Model For Information Literacy Instruction

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I thought that this article would be particularly helpful in this class so that we might find more concrete ways to use cognitivism in information literacy instruction. By being able to follow these principles in our planning, we can better structure how to impart information on our patrons, whether in a formal instructional setting or not.

Retrieved on February 10, 2019 by Melanie M.

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Dani Brecher Cook ( dani_cook@cuc.claremont.edu) Information Literacy and Learning Technologies Coordinator, The Claremont Colleges Library, Claremont University Consortium, Claremont, California. Kevin Michael Klipfel ( kklipfel@csuchico.edu) Head, Research, Teaching and Learning, Meriam Library, California State University-Chico.

Authors' contributions were equal; names are listed alphabetically.

Effective pedagogy requires understanding how students learn and tailoring our instruction accordingly. One key element of student-centered pedagogy involves understanding the cognitive psychological processes according to which students learn, and to structure our teaching with these processes in mind. This paper fills in a gap in the current literature, by applying empirically grounded lessons drawn from the cognitive science of learning, and discussing specific applications of these lessons for information literacy instruction. The paper outlines a framework for information literacy instruction, grounded in the educational and cognitive psychology literature, for facilitating student retention and transfer of information literacy skills, two classic measures of student learning. Five specific principles and several strategies for promoting retention and transfer within information literacy instruction are outlined. This article is an expansion of a presentation given at LOEX in May 2014.

What Are The Goals of an Information Literacy Educator?

Aristotle famously began his treatise on the good life, the Nicomachean Ethics, by drawing an analogy between the science of ethics and the art of archery. Just as archers are more likely to be successful if they clearly understand their target, searchers after ethical truth must have some theoretical understanding of the "good life" to aim their lives toward that goal.1 Without understanding the objective, achieving a goal is a matter of luck, not expertise and wisdom. Extending this analogy to pedagogy, instructors must have a clear idea of how and whether our students learn, so that they can adopt the most effective strategies for facilitating learning.

Applying insights from cognitive and educational psychology is one highly effective way educators can take concrete steps to successfully approach their teaching to maximize student learning.2 Within the educational psychology literature, "learning" has a very specific definition. Educational psychologists Mayer and Wittrock write that learning is "a change in the learner's knowledge."3 This change can be measured through outcomes of retention and transfer, two "classic measures" of student learning.4 Retention is "the ability on the part of the learner to remember, recognize, and recall information presented to them," while transfer is "the ability to take what one has learned in one situation and use it to solve problems in unrelated contexts."5

Understanding the science of learning is particularly important for instruction librarians in academic libraries who are being increasingly called upon to take on robust teaching and learning roles on their campuses.6 Although most information literacy (IL) instruction takes place within academic libraries, the goals are much broader. Librarians are not simply teaching students how to identify scholarly sources, access library databases, and cite sources. Instead, the instruction librarian's job is to teach students information literacy skills, applicable in contexts as varied as on-the-job decision-making and researching a new purchase.7 These objectives align directly with the concepts of retention and transfer: we want students to remember the concepts and skills that we teach them (retention), but we also want students to take what they have learned and apply it to new, unrelated contexts (transfer). Recent research suggests that IL instruction has mixed results in this regard,8 indicating a need for strategies to organize information literacy instruction in a way that will facilitate the transfer of IL skills acquired in one context (disciplinary research) to other contexts (other academic work, future careers, and personal needs).

A second key psychological idea about how people learn may come as a surprise to many educators given the ubiquitous practice of teaching to various "learning styles," especially within the library literature.9 A recent meta-analysis of the education research on learning styles research indicates that there is no compelling evidence for the claim that teaching with such preferences in mind enhances student learning.10 As a matter of fact, the cognitive psychological literature indicates that people "are more alike than different in how they learn"11 and that, from a cognitive standpoint, "[a]ll students do have certain things in common."12 That is not to say that people do not have different learning preferences or interests; that learning disabilities are not real; or that some people may not be better than others at remembering certain types of information.13 Those statements are all certainly accurate; however, cognitive psychology has found that almost all human brains share important similarities in terms of how they absorb and process information. For education practitioners, this means that there are certain pedagogical strategies that can improve the likelihood of learning for most students.14 The framework proposed in the present paper leverages this insight to suggest ways that instruction librarians can improve student learning outcomes. With these two key psychological principles in mind, instruction librarians can focus their instruction around the following two general questions:

1. How can I teach this material to students so that it best facilitates their retention of the information being presented?

2. How can I teach this material to students so that it best facilitates their ability to transfer this information across domains?

This paper elaborates five general strategies, grounded in the cognitive and educational psychology literature, that can help answer these two questions for any instruction session (these principles also apply to digital learning objects created to teach students online). This theoretical, evidence-based understanding of learning can help instruction librarians focus their practice toward long-term outcomes applicable beyond one library session. It also allows for reflective practice and introspection, encouraging instruction librarians to examine what we teach, how we teach it, and why it matters. This cognitive model of instruction is intended to serve as a guide and inspiration for instruction librarians who want to engage in evidence-based practice and leverage the findings of cognitive science to improve student learning outcomes.

Five Principles for Structuring Information Literacy Instruction

Principle 1: Create a Problem Context

Human beings and their primate relatives are innately tuned to enjoy solving problems. In a 1949 study, University of Wisconsin researchers discovered that rhesus monkeys did not (as the scientists expected) require external incentive to solve a basic mechanical puzzle; they enjoyed solving the puzzle simply for its own sake.15 Additional studies have confirmed that "solving a problem gives people pleasure."16 The introduction of a puzzle or a problem to be solved immediately grabs people's attention, as they perceive that there will be something interesting and worthwhile involved in the process.17

For this reason, organizing instruction around a concrete intellectual problem can be an effective way to increase student retention of information literacy skills. When students come to a library session with a particular assignment to work on, there is an immediate problem context raised: students need to gain the skills that will help them crack the puzzle that is their assignment. This provides a critical opportunity for instruction librarians. With learning outcomes explicitly tied to the skills required to complete an assignment, the session becomes immediately relevant to students and can increase motivation.

Increasing students' cognitive engagement has been demonstrated to increase their information retention. Indeed, the cognitive psychology literature also indicates that people tend to remember what they pay attention to.18 If people are inherently more likely to be interested in problems than a straight delivery of content, then it follows that organizing lessons around specific problems that relate to the assignment at hand can lead students to be more invested in what they are learning and to thus improve their retention of material.19

There are multiple strategies for applying a problem context to an IL session. By being explicit about the session's learning outcomes, librarians can define the problem context from the outset of the session and generate student interest. A librarian might write the targeted learning outcomes on the board and say something like, "The focus of this session will be to help you learn the research skills you'll need for your assignment." Students should then see the relevancy of the session to their current puzzle, completing the assignment.

Following the same lines, using the specific language of the assignment can increase cognitive engagement. For example, an instruction librarian might say of a specific learning outcome or skill: "This will help you find the three scholarly sources for your literature review," highlighting the relevant portion of the assignment prompt. This language clearly indicates that the session is directly relevant to students' coursework. By using the language of the assignment prompt, the librarian both taps into the student's instrumental motivation to successfully complete the assignment for a grade and provides a potential solution for the problem of the assignment.

This strategy not only promotes retention, but also creates ideal conditions for facilitating the transfer of information literacy skills to other contexts. By tying a more abstract concept to a real-life problem (e.g., finding scholarly research for an annotated bibliography), students gain conditional knowledge, "knowing when and why to use existing conceptual and procedural knowledge."20 The acquisition of conditional knowledge has been demonstrated to improve the likelihood of transfer. When students understand how and why a particular skill is relevant, they are better prepared to recognize structural similarities in other contexts which may look different on the surface, but in which the same knowledge applies.

Principle 2: Do Less

In most library instruction scenarios, ranging from one-shot sessions to curriculum-embedded mini-sessions, librarians have a limited amount of time to teach information literacy concepts and competencies.21 The temptation, then, is to pack as much content into a session as possible to maximize students' exposure to library resources and research skills. However, research in cognitive science indicates that this strategy is ineffective, and that by limiting the amount of content delivered in a single classroom session, instructors can improve the amount of information students retain.

In his seminal 1956 article, George A. Miller posited that the human brain can only successfully process a limited amount of new information at one time.22 While there is an ongoing debate in the psychological literature over the exact "magical number" of discrete items that can be processed by the brain at once, as well as controversy over whether there is a universal specific number at all, the general consensus is that there is some mental limit to absorbing new information.23 Miller's theory and related research create the basis for "cognitive load theory," which considers the balance between acquisition of new information, building connections to previously learned information, and problem solving.24

A related phenomenon is "information overload," which occurs when too much relevant information is presented to a person, to the point where they are unable to differentiate and prioritize information.25 When people are confronted with too much information to process, they turn to a variety of coping behaviors to limit information input (e.g., tuning out, satisficing).26

What we call "learning" begins when information enters the working memory, the part of the brain that "holds the stuff you're thinking about" and which is the site of the information processing that is addressed in cognitive load theory.27 For information to be learned it needs to travel from the working memory to the long-term memory, which stores facts and procedures for later recall. Simply put, this means that only information that fits into an individual's working memory has even a chance of being learned.

These limitations on how much new information a person can successfully process have direct implications for the classroom. Specifically, by targeting only two or three learning outcomes per instruction session, instructors can successfully direct students' focus to those skills and prevent the tuning out that occurs with information overload. By teaching less content, instructors can help students learn more.

One strategy for limiting the amount of content in a library session is to write down all potential outcomes for the session, given the particular assignment and infinite time. Then, rank the outcomes in order of priority: Which outcomes are the most critical for successfully completing the research assignment? The top two or three outcomes provide the basis for the current session. The remainder of the potential outcomes can form the basis of a compelling argument for additional library instruction sessions.

In short, minimizing content maximizes retention. Not only does limiting learning outcomes avoid cognitive overload, but it also provides time in the session for practice and application of new concepts. The importance of practice is discussed in Principle 5.

Principle 3: Build a Narrative

Human beings are innately interested in stories.28 Psychological research has shown that the human memory accords a special place to information presented in the form of a story; Willingham writes that "psychologists refer to stories as 'psychologically privileged,' meaning that they are treated differently in memory than other types of material."29 This uniquely human preference for stories is equally represented in the arts. For example, Joan Didion famously began her essay, "The White Album," by asserting, "We tell ourselves stories to live."30 Stories, then, are both humanistically and scientifically central to the human experience and memory. This insight gives teacher-librarians a concrete strategy for improving their pedagogy. When it is appropriate and necessary to offer explanations of class content to students, librarians can embed their instruction within the context of a narrative, since teaching through narrative maximizes the potential for learners to retain information.

There are at least two effective narrative strategies outlined in the literature that librarians can use; one which we will call narrative modeling, and a second which we will simply call storytelling. Narrative modeling is a strategy that instructors can use to teach students how to problem-solve for a particular intellectual task. Librarians tell the story of how they performed a research skill in a methodical, step-by-step manner.31 The story itself will vary depending on the stage of the research process. For example, if students are developing a research question, the instructor might, quite literally, tell the story of how they came to choose the example topic and describe how it fits within the context of the assignment. The instructor could then tell the story of how they searched for resources that met their information need.

For example, consider an assignment that asks students to write a music review in the style of a Pitchfork.com review. The librarian can then use class time to model the selection of a topic that fits within the confines of this assignment. Here is one possible narrative:

When I got your assignment, I thought about what I could write about, and I was thinking about writing about my favorite rapper, Drake. I wasn't sure exactly what to write about though, so I just started Googling "Drake," and came across this article from Vulture.com about Drake.32 It had this quote that I thought was really interesting: that what was unique about Drake, compared to other rappers, is that for him, rap "authenticity" isn't about being gangster, like it was for Jay-Z, but it's more about being yourself. So I thought that was really interesting: how Drake has changed authenticity in hip hop. It's not about like, being tough, or coming from the streets, but about just being yourself. So I asked myself, how would I turn that into a research topic about music and culture that I can actually find information on?

This explanation, embedded in the context of a story, can then be used to walk students through the process (again through narrative) for how they could go about developing keywords and searching for information that would satisfy this particular information need. This strategy can be used for any research assignment, and can be effective at any level throughout the curriculum, provided that the librarian is teaching to a specific assignment. Narratives will be unique to both the course assignment and the instructor herself; library instructors will want to choose examples that are authentic to themselves.

On the other hand, librarians are often asked to provide a general introduction to library research, without a specific assignment attached. This is often considered problematic in the literature, since, without a problem context for the library instruction session, students may lose interest, not pay attention to the librarian, and learn little in the process on than librarians are boring.33 However, librarians can take the opportunity to turn a "generic" instruction opportunity into a concrete narrative. This also creates a problem context for the session. For example,

When we do research in college, all we're doing is looking up something we might want to know more about. This is what your professors are doing, and it's what you can take the opportunity to use your classes for. There's so many things we see day-to-day that we don't even notice might be research, but that you could turn into a research project.

For example, I recently came across this article on Slate talking about "haters"34-people who are always negative and down on people-and how scientific data now provides evidence for the popular phrase that "haters gonna hate."

Now I just thought this was kind of funny-but it's based on real research, and it's actually the kind of thing you could write a paper about-in a psychology class, in a first year writing course, or in many different places, really. But first you need to know a few research skills to be able to do that . . .

This method should not only be more interesting from a cognitive perspective than a more straightforward exposition, but it also provides students with a concrete model to solve information problems. As Mayer and Wittrock write, "The goal of example methods is to show learners how to solve typical problems in a field or subject area."35 Modelling such behavior through narrative presents the students with a meaningful context to learn information literacy skills. This should help students retain and transfer these skills to their own information searching and research behaviors in the future.

A second narrative strategy that instruction librarians can use is a more straightforward storytelling approach. Educational psychologists Arya and Maul provide a concrete illustration of the difference between a traditional lecture and a storytelling narrative in the context of science education.36 For example, a straightforward expository lecture on Galileo's discoveries might look like this:

And with this simple, powerful tool [Galilean telescope], we can see many details when we use it to look up into the night sky. The moon may look like a smooth ball of light covered with dark spots, but on a closer look through this telescope, we can see deep valleys and great mountain ranges. Through the telescope, we can now see all the different marks on the moon's surface.37

This explanation, however, looks slightly different as a more traditional story:

When Galileo looked through his new telescope, he could see the surface of the moon, and so he began his first close look into space. He slept during the day to work and see the moon at night. Many people thought that the moon was a smooth ball with a light of its own. Now that Galileo had a closer look through his telescope, he realized that the moon's surface had mountains and valleys.38

The difference between the two modes of delivery is subtle, yet Arya and Maul's research indicates that the shift from lecture to story makes a significant difference for information retention. While educators have often stressed the "cognitive importance of having . . . texts students find interesting and relevant,"39 it is interesting to note that how the material is presented by the instructor is at least as important as whether the material is deemed "inherently" interesting by students. The presentation of material matters.

Given this understanding of the science of memory, library instructors at all levels of experience now have a concrete, data-driven answer to the question, "How should I present this material to students so that they find it interesting?" The answer, though deeply humanistic, has the force of scientific evidence behind it: "Tell your students a story."

Principle 4: Focus on Deep Structure

As mentioned in Principle One, memory research indicates that people remember what they pay attention to. Practically, this means that librarians should organize their lessons around the material that they most want students to learn-the skills that are most important to retention and transfer. Additionally, the cognitive science literature can help librarians determine what aspects of a particular concept to focus instruction on. To more clearly understand this point, the distinction between shallow knowledge and deep knowledge is critical.

Shallow knowledge is a student's understanding of material that remains on the surface of the material and is therefore only useful within the initial context that it is learned.40 One simple example involves identifying an article of clothing. If one were to define a polo shirt as "that black shirt with the crocodile on it," that would be accurate in the immediate context in which it was learned. This description would accurately describe a single type of polo shirt-it would not describe all polo shirts, as some are not black and some do not feature a crocodile. It is superficial knowledge that is relevant only in one context and thus only informs choices within that single context. Without additional understanding, the knowledge is not transferrable and does not promote critical thinking.

In contrast, deep knowledge is knowledge that focuses on the core meanings-or "deep structure"-of a practice. Deep structural knowledge is important because it is transferable to other contexts. It facilitates critical thinking by creating the right conditions for students to apply what they have learned in many situations. To return to the previous example, if we defined a polo shirt as "a form of shirt with a collar, a placket with typically two or three buttons, and an optional pocket,"41 this would come much closer to providing deep structural knowledge of a polo shirt that would transfer to many contexts, and be useful for determining whether any type of shirt is a polo shirt. Unfortunately, a good deal of instruction that goes on in the classroom both in and outside of libraries focuses on superficial knowledge. This is problematic because it does not promote transfer and critical thinking, whereas getting students to think about meaning does promote those skills.

When thinking about teaching students the meaning, or deep structure, of material, it is often useful for the instructor to ask why it is important for the students to learn any given content. To take an example from the library context, consider database searching. Instruction pitched at surface level knowledge might focus on teaching students techniques for searching a particular database. This content is problematic from the standpoint of the science of learning, as it teaches students about a specific database, rather than about how databases work in general. It does not promote transfer and critical thinking, and thus does not lead to significant student learning.

Alternatively, a librarian might focus on teaching students the deep structural characteristics of databases. The librarian might ask herself: What is the point of teaching students about these databases in the first place? Why am I doing this? Reflecting on the deeper meaning of one's practice in this way may help the librarian to realize that the ultimate point of database instruction is not to tell students how to search this particular database, but to teach students more general principles about how databases work so that they can transfer this understanding to other databases. Although this point may seem banal, the implications for library instruction and particularly subject specialists may be radical, as it suggests that spending time showing students the ins and outs of a particular database is not an effective way for library instructors to spend time with students in the classroom. Instead, class time could be spent focusing on the deep structure of information, such as determining reliable evidence within a discipline. This strategy can help students ask deeper questions about the information they encounter in their daily lives.42

Deep structure can also apply to the so-called "popular" vs. "scholarly" source distinction. Why is teaching students this distinction important? What is the deeper meaning of the popular vs. scholarly dichotomy? The deeper meaning here is philosophical: Out of all the information available in the world, what should I believe? How do I know if it is reliable?43 The core knowledge that librarians can teach to is what makes a piece of information trustworthy at its core. As Pashler et al. recommend, "[t]eachers should identify deep-level questions that they can use to prompt students to reason about underlying explanatory principles relating to the course content."44

Thinking of the popular vs. scholarly distinction in this way surfaces the deep structure behind the dichotomy: evidence. Belief should be based on the best available evidence, and the scholarly vs. popular article distinction is relevant because scholarly articles (at least tend to) provide the best evidence for the claims that an author makes.45 This is the deeper meaning of the popular/scholarly distinction and it is what we want our lesson to get students to think about. The meaning gets lost when the concept of evidence is not central to the lesson, as in general discussions of the CRAAP or other acronym-friendly tests that focus on surface characteristics of information.46

Information literacy librarians working with first-year students may simply introduce students to the concept of "evidence:" the idea that robust arguments are backed up with strong evidence, and that concept is what is practiced in research assignments. This can help scaffold information literacy instruction throughout the curriculum, with subject liaison librarians focusing on the concept of evidence within a discipline. In this way, instruction librarians can move away from pointing and clicking and toward helping students think critically about information. Of course, what counts as evidence within a particular subject (and even for a particular claim) area may vary. For example, business librarians may use their subject expertise to recognize that quality industry reports are the appropriate standard of evidence for a particular research assignment; history liaisons may recognize that primary sources are the kinds of evidence that matter to historians; and education librarians will realize that what counts as evidence in their area are quality, peer-reviewed studies about student learning. Subject expertise still matters. However, thinking about deep structure can change how liaison librarians frame their teaching. They can center a lecture explicitly on questions like "What counts as evidence in business?" which can help students engage meaningfully and deeply with information. Database instruction may be one part of an instruction session whose overall aim is more robust: to get student to deeply engage with information. One method instructors can use to facilitate this critical thinking capacity in students is to ask students questions that get at the deep structure of content.47

These examples are simply two concrete ways instruction librarians can organize their instruction around the deeper meaning of a particular research skill. Focusing instructional content on the deep structure of the material-the transferrable conceptual content at the core of a research practice-is rooted in the science of learning. The next question is how to get students to practice application of deep structure.

Principle 5: Active Learning Is Practice of Deep Structure

For something to be truly "learned," the information or process not only has to enter memory, but also has to get out again, to be applied to new contexts and situations.48 One of the most critical components of this process is practice.49 By allowing time and creating opportunity to repeat and practice new knowledge in the classroom, instruction librarians can get students to actively engage with the deep structure of the material and thus be more likely to recall and use these new skills in novel contexts.

Deliberate practice means that individuals are motivated to focus on a task, put effort into improving their ability, find the task only slightly more difficult than what they are already capable of, and receive immediate and constructive feedback.50 This type of practice is required for a person to gain mastery of a concept or an entire domain. When Malcolm Gladwell writes about 10,000 hours of practice being required to become an expert in a field, he means 10,000 hours of deliberate practice.51 Indeed, this kind of intense focus on the task at hand is also what Willingham discusses when he says that people "remember what they pay attention to." For students to apply information literacy concepts in their research and beyond, instruction librarians need to facilitate this type of active engagement with the material in the classroom, helping students apply the research skills they will need to deliberately practice throughout their college careers.

The combination of practice and deep structure is a potent one for ensuring that students will learn the material. Practice facilitates retention, while deep structure facilitates transfer. Active learning exercises can combine these two ideas successfully. Meaningful active learning methods engage with higher-level cognitive activity, including exercises that require finding, evaluating, and using information. Students are asked to take concepts they learn in class and meaningfully engage with them. This is in contrast to more traditional teaching styles, such as lecturing.

Of course, many of the concepts discussed in information literacy are relatively abstract, such as reliability and credibility. However, this makes them excellent candidates for active learning exercises that engage with deliberate practice, as "the surest way to help students understand an abstraction is to expose them to many different versions of the abstraction."52 To engage with deep structure and practice, then, instructors need to plan classroom exercises that encourage students to think about the meaning of a concept in multiple different contexts.

To return to the polo shirt example from Principle 4, students who understand the deep structure of polo shirts will be able to identify any shirt as such that meets the general criteria: a placket, collar, and buttons. To have students practice their mastery of deep polo shirt structure, an instructor could have students examine a variety of types of shirts, including different brands, styles, and colors. Students would then have to pick polo shirts out of the line-up, correctly identifying them even when they featured different logos or colors than the original example shirt. This activity allows students to apply their knowledge in new contexts, and also to repeat the action of remembering and applying the concept of "polo shirt." This type of activity allows for both repetition and transfer.

By asking students to apply this new knowledge in multiple contexts, they begin to see the underlying themes of the polo shirt-that is, deep structure. Additionally, this approach calls for students to pull knowledge out of their memory, use it, and then return it. Another benefit of sustained deliberate practice is that "the more times you retrieve a memory . . . the stronger it is and the more likely will remember it when you need to."53 Thus, when active learning activities involve practice focused on exposing deep structure, students are more likely to recall and reuse what they learn in library instruction.

Conclusion

Findings from the science of learning can refocus our instruction on student learning outcomes and enrich pedagogical practices. This cognitive model of instruction is intended to serve as a guide and inspiration for instruction librarians who want to engage in evidence based practice and leverage the findings of cognitive science to improve student learning outcomes. These five principles are broad enough that they can be applied to every type of information literacy session, including those done in online environments. The model is not meant to be prescriptive nor are the examples the sole way to apply these principles; indeed, one value of the framework as presented here is that it allows for infinite creativity in its applications. With this understanding in place, librarians are in the position to think of any number of innovative ways to develop specific learning exercises and lesson plans that will help students think about the deep structure of information within the context of research. This article should be the starting point for reflecting on how we teach and how we might support student learning more effectively.

To begin applying these five principles in your own instruction sessions, ask yourself:

What research skills does this assignment require?

Where will students be at in the research process during the time of the session?

What two or three learning outcomes am I going to focus on?

How can I incorporate storytelling into my lesson?

What is the deep structure I want students to learn in the session?

What active learning exercise would provide examples of the deep structure?

By answering these six questions, librarians will incorporate research findings that promote retention and transfer of information; that is to say, learning.

References

1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), I.2.

2. Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek, The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain (Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub, 2013); John Dunlosky et al., "Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology," Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 4-58; Harold Pashler et al., Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning (Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, 2007).

3. Richard E. Mayer and Merlin C. Wittrock, "Problem Solving," in Handbook of Educational Psychology, Second (New York: Routledge, 2006), 289.

4. Cf. Bransford et al., who write that "the ultimate goal of learning is to have access to information for a wide set of purposes . . . [so students can] transfer what they have learned in school to everyday settings of home, community, and workplace" (1999, 73).

5. Mayer and Wittrock, "Problem Solving." 289.

6. Dani Brecher and Kevin M. Klipfel, "Education Training for Instruction Librarians: A Shared Perspective," Communications in Information Literacy 8, no. 1 (2014): 43-49.

7. Alison J. Head, Learning Curve: How College Graduates Solve Information Problems Once They Join the Workplace, Project Information Literacy Research Report, 2012.

8. Ibid.

9. See e.g., Angela Weiler, "Information-Seeking Behavior in Generation Y Students: Motivation, Critical Thinking, and Learning Theory," The Journal of Academic Librarianship 31, no. 1 (January 2005): 46-53.

10. Myron H. Dembo and Keith Howard, "Advice about the Use of Learning Styles: A Major Myth in Education," Journal of College Reading and Learning 37, no. 2 (Spr 2007): 101-9; Harold Pashler et al., "Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence," Psychological Science in the Public Interest 9, no. 3 (December 2009): 105-19; Frank Coffield et al., Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning: A Systematic and Critical Review (London: Learning & Skills Research Centre, 2004).

11. Daniel T. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 147.

12. Daniel Willingham and David Daniel, "Teaching to What Students Have in Common," Educational Leadership 69, no. 5 (February 2012): 21.

13. Cedar Riener and Daniel T. Willingham, "The Myth of Learning Styles," Change (October 2010).

14. Pashler et al., Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning; Willingham and Daniel, "Teaching to What Students Have in Common"; Dunlosky et al., "Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques."

15. Harry F. Harlow, Margaret Kuenne Harlow, and Donald R. Meyer, "Learning Motivated by a Manipulation Drive," Journal of Experimental Psychology 40, no. 2 (April 1950): 228-34; Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).

16. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School?, 21.

17. Paul J. Silvia, "Interest-The Curious Emotion," Current Directions in Psychological Science 17, no. 1 (February 2008): 57-60.

18. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School?, 54; Doyle and Zakrajsek, The New Science of Learning, 74

19. David Kember, Amber Ho, and Celina Hong, "The Importance of Establishing Relevance in Motivating Student Learning," Active Learning in Higher Education 9, no. 3 (November 1, 2008): 249-63.

20. Mayer and Wittrock, "Problem Solving," 289; Karen Murphy and Patricia A. Alexander, Understanding How Students Learn: A Guide for Instructional Leaders, Leadership for Learning (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2006), 41.

21. Amy Van Epps and Megan Sapp Nelson, "One-Shot or Embedded? Assessing Different Delivery Timing for Information Resources Relevant to Assignments," Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 8, no. 1 (n.d.).

22. George A. Miller, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information," Psychological Review 63 (1956): 81-97.

23. Alan Baddeley, "The Magical Number Seven: Still Magic After All These Years?," Psychological Review 101, no. 2 (April 1994): 353-56; Nelson Cowan, "The Magical Number 4 in Short-Term Memory: A Reconsideration of Mental Storage Capacity," Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24, no. 1 (February 2001): 87-114; Fernand Gobet and Gary Clarkson, "Chunks in Expert Memory: Evidence for the Magical Number Four . . . or Is It Two?," Memory 12, no. 6 (November 2004): 732-47.

24. John Sweller, "Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning," Cognitive Science 12, no. 2 (1988): 257-85; Paul Chandler and John Sweller, "Cognitive Load Theory and the Format of Instruction," Cognition and Instruction 8, no. 4 (1991): 293-332.

25. David Bawden and Lyn Robinson, "The Dark Side of Information: Overload, Anxiety and Other Paradoxes and Pathologies," Journal of Information Science 35, no. 2 (April 2009): 180-91.

26. Joel Rudd and Mary Jo Rudd, "Coping with Information Load: User Strategies and Implications for Librarians," College & Research Libraries 47, no. 4 (July 1986): 315-22.

27. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School?, 14.

28. Brian Boyd, On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap, 2010); Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).

29. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School?, 66.

30. Joan Didion, "The White Album," in The White Album: Essays (New York: Farrar, 1979), 11-50.

31. Stephen N. Elliott, Thomas R. Kratochwill, and Joan Littlefield Cook, Educational Psychology: Effective Teaching, Effective Learning, 3rd ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000). See also Daniel Willingham, "Making Students More CURIOUS," Knowledge Quest 42, no. 5 (May 2014): 32. In addition to increasing information retention, this methodology, by demonstrating the instructor's curiosity with research, can facilitate students' curiosity and cognitive engagement.

32. Jody Rosen, "Rosen on Drake's Nothing Was the Same: Is Drake the Rap-Game Taylor Swift?," Vulture, September 24, 2013, www.vulture.com/2013/09/music-review-drake-nothing-was-the-same.html.

33. Yvonne Nalani Meulemans and Allison Carr, "Not at Your Service: Building Genuine Faculty-Librarian Partnerships," Reference Services Review 41, no. 1 (2013): 80-90.

34. Katy Waldman, "Haters Gonna Hate, Study Confirms," The XX, August 28, 2013, www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/28/haters_are_gonna_hate_dispositional_attitude_study_confirms_it.html.

35. Mayer and Wittrock, "Problem Solving," 295.

36. Diana J Arya and Andrew Maul, "The Role of the Scientific Discovery Narrative in Middle School Science Education: An Experimental Study," Journal of Educational Psychology 104, no. 4 (November 2012): 1022-32.

37. Ibid. 124.

38. Ibid. 124.

39. Ibid. 122.

40. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School?

41. "Polo Shirt," Wikipedia, August 16, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polo_shirt.

42. Pashler et al., Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning.

43. Don Fallis, "On Verifying the Accuracy of Information: Philosophical Perspectives," Library Trends 52, no. 3 (2004): 463-87.

44. Pashler et al., Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning, 30.

45. Fallis, "On Verifying the Accuracy of Information."

46. The CRAAP test has students evaluate information by its currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose: www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf.

47. Barak Rosenshine, Carla Meister, and Saul Chapman, "Teaching Students to Generate Questions: A Review of the Intervention Studies," Review of Educational Research 66, no. 2 (January 1, 1996): 181-221; Scotty D. Craig et al., "The Deep-Level-Reasoning-Question Effect: The Role of Dialogue and Deep-Level-Reasoning Questions during Vicarious Learning," Cognition & Instruction 24, no. 4 (2006): 565-91; Pashler et al., Organizing Instruction & Study to Improve Student Learning.

48. Henry L. Roediger and Andrew C. Butler, "The Critical Role of Retrieval Practice in Long-Term Retention," Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15, no. 1 (2011): 20-27.

49. Angela L. Duckworth et al., "Deliberate Practice Spells Success: Why Grittier Competitors Triumph at the National Spelling Bee," Social Psychological and Personality Science 2, no. 2 (March 1, 2011): 174-81.

50. K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-romer, "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance," Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (1993): 363-406.

51. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success, 1st ed (New York: Little, Brown, 2008).

52. Willingham, Why Don't Students like School?; Pashler et al., Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning.

53. Doyle and Zakrajsek, The New Science of Learning, 72.

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Dani Brecher Cook and Kevin Michael Klipfel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Do Our Students Learn? An Outline of a Cognitive Psychological Model for Information Literacy Instruction | Cook | Reference & User Services Quarterly

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How Do Our Students Learn? An Outline of a Cognitive Psychological Model for Information Literacy Instruction

# data[].attributes.headline
Applying Cognitive Development to Specific Instruction

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Applying Cognitive Development to Specific Instruction

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This paper specifically discusses how to practically apply conginitivism to teaching Mathematics. I think it's really interesting as it takes you step-by-step through the process and how specific actions apply to different parts of the theory. This can be extremely helpful to anyone working on a lesson plan, and for us librarians the paper also includes an appendix of children's books that incorporate math.

Retrieved February 10th, 2019 by Melanie M.

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This video covers different topics related to cognitivism. The speaker talks about various topics such as schema, scaffolding and the importance of asking higher level questions in the classroom. He also talks about the idea of the human mind being seen as  black box in the cognitivism theory. I thought this video was very interesting and helped to paint a clearer picture of cognitivism for me.  

# data[].attributes.subject
This video covers different topics related to cognitivism. The speaker talks about various topics such as schema, scaffolding and the importance of asking higher level questions in the classroom. He also talks about the idea of the human mind being seen as  black box in the cognitivism theory. I thought this video was very interesting and helped to paint a clearer picture of cognitivism for me.  

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Retrieved February 8, 2019 by Jolene N.

# data[].attributes.headline
I like this chart because it shows examples of changes in the views of cognitive functions in  the classroom in 1956 and again in the 2001 revision. I thought the the changes in each area were very interesting. 

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I like this chart because it shows examples of changes in the views of cognitive functions in  the classroom in 1956 and again in the 2001 revision. I thought the the changes in each area were very interesting. 

# data[].attributes.body
Retrieved February 8, 2019 by Jolene N.

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2004    COGNITIVE IMPACT OF INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA                                                                               Yanko F. Michea, The University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston

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2004    COGNITIVE IMPACT OF INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA                                                                               Yanko F. Michea, The University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston

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"...the volume of information available exceeds the learners’ memorization capabilities, transforming successful learners in skilled information navigators and integrators, shifting the focus from rote learning towards holistic comprehension of dynamic relationships and processes"  (Michea 7)
Very interesting article, easy to read and very relevant to the topic of today's approach of the cognitive learning theory. This 121 page paper discusses traditional education applications and measurements to today's multimedia opportunities. With multimedia there are faster, more learner-adaptable, and more engaging ways of learning. Using multimedia to teach content with an interactive design "optimize the content in a way that is going to decrease the cognitive work required , increasing the learning outcome." What an opportunity we have with today's technology.  The paper includes a study that was done focusing on health education.  The writer did say that one obstacle is that with so many avenues of information delivery presented at once through multimedia, it is difficult to break down and analyze the various approaches for their effectiveness.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1006&context=uthshis_dissertations

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Remember these games?  What a fun way to learn and burn those mental calories!

Organizing and rearranging information in a game setting is a great way to learn by establishing relationships and inter-relationships with the information.

https://www.mindgames.com/Brain+Games
Retrieved by Amy Vines

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https://www.auglaizelibraries.org/content/game-puzzle-collection
retrieved by Amy Vines
Libraries can easily promote cognitive games in a relaxed setting, making learning fun.

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                                      Cognitive Learning:  Plugging In and Mapping Our World

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                                      Cognitive Learning:  Plugging In and Mapping Our World

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IBM Developer is your one-stop location for getting hands-on training and learning in-demand skills on relevant technologies such as generative AI, data science, AI, and open source.

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AMAZING activity that a librarian does to show how cognitive mapping is learner specific and revealing of the individuality of the learner. After a very in-depth tour of the library, the librarian gives a student supplies and asks that he/she draw a map of the library from memory of the tour. What an amazing way to see what was really worth remembering to a child. What if the child were asked to redraw the map only from memory a day or even a week later--what did the child really feel was worth remembering?

https://acrl.ala.org/IS/cognitive-mapping-the-library-tour/
Retrieved by Amy Vines

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HOW TO:   Cognitive Theory Used in the Classroom

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HOW TO:   Cognitive Theory Used in the Classroom

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This entertaining. simple short three minute video addresses the main terms of the cognitive theory as is is used by the teacher and student in the classroom setting.  Teacher Tony says that cognitive refers to "how information is received, organized, and retrieved by the mind."  He compares the brain to the information processing of a computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gugvpoU2Ewo

Retrieved by Amy Vines

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This video is a look into the way the library interacts with its digital users in an interface.  It is so important to make library interfaces user-friendly.  The cognitive learning theory is used hear in the organization of the materials and ease of access.  If we make our users go through too many steps to find what they are looking for, then we lose them.  Take a look at your library's website and ask yourself:  Is this user-friendly and what would make it better.  With so many potential users of various technological abilities, can there be a one-way-fits-all type of access to an library loan system?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqF2wIMBqBw

Retrieved by Amy Vines

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Learning Theory and the Self-Reliant Library User

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Learning Theory and the Self-Reliant Library User

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This 1984 paper begins by refering to a statement made by Otis Robinson in 1876 about librarians being educators. Seven conceptual frameworks are listed as ones used in library-user education programs. These concepts easily fit into the cognitive learning theory with the structured formats of organized steps and processes. The author also acknowledges limitations of "transference to an new situation (61)" and lack of developing problem-solving skills. Cerise Oberman was discussed and her call for promoting abstract reasoning and problem-solving skills was mentioned. Oberman was cited in this article for the learning-cycle approach and guided design. A lead into constructive theory???
Tuckett, Harold W., and Carla J. Stoffle. “Learning Theory and the Self-Reliant Library User.” RQ, vol. 24, no. 1, 1984, pp. 58–66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25827283.
http://libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=llf&AN=502702580&site=eds-live&scope=site&profile=eds-main
Retrieved by Amy Vines

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I liked these particular definitions of cognitivism,  because the definitions are similar to what my understanding of cognitivism is. 

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I liked these particular definitions of cognitivism,  because the definitions are similar to what my understanding of cognitivism is. 

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Retrieved February 5, 2019 by Jolene N.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IElD4zj-_4stDg9DaDfuM76aV3xzejzaIzppDQtqZf0sgrfZsweTT9l7hlk5YrH8jJHJ=s113

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This video about the cognitive processes really helped me to better understand the steps involved in the process of learning ,and how they relate to the cognitivism learning theory.  The video covers a few topics such as schema, assimilation, accommodations, transfer, cognitive dissonance and others. I found it very informative . 

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This video about the cognitive processes really helped me to better understand the steps involved in the process of learning ,and how they relate to the cognitivism learning theory.  The video covers a few topics such as schema, assimilation, accommodations, transfer, cognitive dissonance and others. I found it very informative . 

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Retrieved February 5, 2019 by Jolene N.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/cognitivism-overview-practical-teaching-examples.html

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Retrieved February 5, 2019 by Jolene N. 

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Retrieved February 5, 2019 by Jolene N. 

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https://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/description-of-cognitivism/

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Description of Cognitivism

Cognitivism is a learning theory that focuses on the processes involved in learning rather than on the observed behavior. As opposed to Behaviorists, Cognitivists do not require an outward exhibition of learning, but focus more on the internal processes and connections that take place during learning. Cognitivism contends that "the black box" of the mind should be opened and understood. The learner is viewed as an information processor. Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions and learning is defined as change in a learner's schemata. Some important classroom principles from cognitive psychology include meaningful learning, organization, and elaboration.

Cognitivism as a reaction against Behaviorism

Cognitivist theory developed as a reaction to Behaviorism. Cognitivists objected to behaviorists because they felt that behaviorists thought learning was simply a reaction to a stimulus and ignored the idea that thinking plays an important role. One of the most famous criticisms addressed to Behaviorism was Chomsky's argument that language could not be acquired purely through conditioning, and must be at least partly explained by the existence of some inner abilities. Behaviorism for example falls short to explain how children can learn an infinite number of utterance that they have never heard of.

The role of the learner

The learners according to cognitivists are active participants in the learning process. They use various strategies to process and construct their personal understanding of the content to which they are exposed. Students are not considered anymore as recipients that teachers fill with knowledge, but as active participants in the learning.

Notable cognitivists

A few of the cognitivists who have contributed to developing the cognitive theory are the following:

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Cognitivism is a learning theory that focuses on the processes involved in learning rather than on the observed behavior. As opposed to Behaviorists, Cognitivists do not require an outward exhibition of learning, but focus more on the internal processes and connections that take place during learning.

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This video covers different aspects of cognitivism practices in the classroom. I really liked the concrete ideas and connections between the cognitivism practices and how to apply them in a classroom setting. A few of the topics covered are the importance of active participation by students, the use of a KWL chart in the class, the importance of a teacher being open to students opinions and the steps of learning, watching , touching and experiencing in the classroom. This video helped me with understanding some real examples of what cognitivism practices can look like. 

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This video covers different aspects of cognitivism practices in the classroom. I really liked the concrete ideas and connections between the cognitivism practices and how to apply them in a classroom setting. A few of the topics covered are the importance of active participation by students, the use of a KWL chart in the class, the importance of a teacher being open to students opinions and the steps of learning, watching , touching and experiencing in the classroom. This video helped me with understanding some real examples of what cognitivism practices can look like. 

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Retrieved February 5, 2019 by Jolene N.
https://youtu.be/iCeWR39lL9E

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Cognitivism