Principle to practice: the split-attention effect
- Dan Williams
- Feb 28
- 2 min read
Introduction
After Mike Tyler’s excellent presentation at the #FEShowcase18 where he explained Soderstrom and Bjork’s work and made clear links between their principles and practice, I was inspired to explore a range of research articles on learning and memory and present it in a similar fashion. I've been off the blogging scene for a while and hope to reinvigorate the blog by producing at least one of these short posts per week over the summer period, using research to make clear and practical suggestions to support teachers.
Here’s my first one by Chandler and Sweller (1992):
THE SPLIT-ATTENTION EFFECT AS A FACTOR IN THE DESIGN OF INSTRUCTION
What's the paper about?
This paper centres on the impact of instruction. Using cognitive load theory as a basis for the work, the authors argue that many methods of instruction are ineffective as they involve greater extraneous load (irrelevant things that impact on our very limited working memory e.g. fancy presentations). When information is presented by two different sources, e.g. text and diagrams, learners have to split their attention. This can cause extra ‘load’ in working memory as they are having to make sense of two different sources of information. The authors call this the ‘split-attention effect’.
What was the aim of the paper?
Essentially, the aim was to determine the impact of the split-attention effect on learning
What did they do?
Their research involved two experiments:
Experiment 1 compared conventional text and diagram instructions (e.g. the text instructions were above a diagram they related to) with physically integrated instructions (the text instructions were integrated into the diagram) for 20 engineer apprentices learning a milling process. Post-test results for the integrated instructions were considerably higher than the conventional group.
Experiment 2 focused on 20 Psychology students who had to answer questions on a traditional research paper versus a paper with methodology and result section integrated. Once again, the integrated format was far more effective than conventional formats.
What is the key principle of this paper?
Not only should diagrams and text be integrated, the evidence is strong that learning can be enhanced by integrating mutually referring, sources of purely textual information (e.g. the method and results section of a paper).
What does this look like in practice?
The example below shows the flow of blood through the heart. Image A is an example of a typical worksheet that one might find in a classroom. This requires the learners to split their attention back and forth between the image and the text. Image B on the other-hand is integrated; the text accompanies the diagram and this reduces the unnecessary load on working memory as learners do not have to switch between the text and diagram.
[caption id="attachment_6064" align="alignnone" width="559"] Image A[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6065" align="alignnone" width="962"] Image B[/caption]
So… how might you use the split-attention effect research to support your teaching?
*I’m happy to be corrected on any misunderstanding. Feel free to comment.
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