Principles for Designing Effective and Efficient Training of Complex Cognitive Skills

Abstract

This chapter describes principles for the design of training of complex cognitive tasks that pose relatively great challenges to the cognitive capacity of the trainee. Using the theoretical framework of cognitive load, we argue that the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture need to be taken into account in the design of effective and efficient training. For training complex cognitive tasks, this means that cognitive load needs to be controlled by optimizing the relationship between (a) the intrinsic load imposed by the complexity of the training task and (b) the effective (germane) and ineffective (extraneous) loads imposed by the design of the training tasks. Design principles for training tasks, for sequences of training tasks in fixed training programs (in which all trainees receive the same sequence), and for ways to create adaptive or personalized training programs (in which each trainee receives a personalized sequence) are discussed. Simple to complex sequencing of training tasks, decreasing support, increasing contextual interference, and spacing are discussed as effective principles for fostering learning and transfer in fixed training programs. System-controlled, shared-responsibility, and advisory models for task selection are discussed as possible models to be used to foster learning and transfer in adaptive training programs.