Cognitive Load in the Resource Room: Applying Sweller's

The resource room is one of the most cognitively demanding environments in a school. Students transition mid-period from general education classrooms, carrying the cognitive residue of whatever they were just doing. They arrive with working memory capacities that are, by definition, below average. They receive compressed instruction in reading, maths, or writing. Then they return to general education to pick up where they left off. Every transition, every context switch, every instructional demand competes for a cognitive resource that is already in short supply.

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Most discussions of cognitive load theory apply it to curriculum design in mainstream classrooms. Kennedy and Romig (2024) is the only peer-reviewed paper connecting it directly to special education, and it is paywalled. This guide fills that gap. It applies Sweller's theory to the specific conditions of resource room instruction, where the combination of limited working memory, frequent transitions, and multiple daily interventions creates a perfect storm for cognitive overload.

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Why Cognitive Load Theory Matters More in Special Education

Sweller's (1988) cognitive load theory explains differing learning outcomes from instruction. Working memory has limited capacity and duration. Learning fails when instruction overloads this memory. Sweller (2011) reviewed extensive research supporting these predictions.

Cowan (2001) said learners usually hold four information chunks in working memory. Alloway (2009) studied children and found working memory strongly predicted underachievement. This was more telling than IQ or socioeconomic status. Swanson and Siegel (2001) found reading difficulties link to working memory issues. They noted problems with phonological loop and central executive.

What this means in practice is that the margin between manageable instruction and cognitive overload is narrower in the resource room than anywhere else in a school. A typically developing Year 5 student might absorb a four-step problem with a complex worked example and retain the structure. A student with a learning disability in the same lesson may lose the thread at step two and spend the remaining time managing confusion rather than learning. The instructional design is not wrong, but it was not built for this student's cognitive architecture.

The resource room teacher who understands cognitive load theory is not simply applying a mainstream framework in a new setting. They are working with a theory that explains, with precision, why some of their students shut down, make increasing errors across a session, or seem to lose at the end what they understood at the beginning. Every strategy in this guide follows directly from that explanation.

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The Three Types of Cognitive Load and What They Mean in Your Classroom

Intrinsic load depends on subject complexity (Sweller, 2010). Extraneous load comes from poor design, hindering learning (Mayer, 2014). Germane load helps build schemas, supporting knowledge transfer (Sweller, van Merrienboer & Paas, 1998).

Intrinsic load is how complex the material is. Decoding CVC words has lower intrinsic load than sentences. Solving simple equations has lower intrinsic load than complex word problems. Content and interacting elements dictate intrinsic load (Sweller, 1988). You can't lower intrinsic load without task changes. Sequence content, introducing fewer interacting elements (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006). Learners master components before combinations.

Extraneous load is the cognitive demand created by how content is presented, rather than by the content itself. It is load imposed by poor instructional design. Instructions that are harder to parse than necessary, materials that require students to look in two places simultaneously, explanations that repeat what the student can already read, visual layouts that scatter related information across a page: all of these create extraneous load that consumes working memory without contributing to learning. Extraneous load is the primary target for resource room teachers because it is entirely within your control.

Germane load means the effort learners use to understand new knowledge (Sweller et al.). Learners integrate new information with prior knowledge. Germane load uses spare working memory after intrinsic and extraneous loads. Reducing extraneous load gives learners more capacity for learning.

To make this concrete, consider a resource room reading lesson on main idea identification. The intrinsic load is moderate: students must understand what a paragraph says, identify what most of it is about, and abstract a general statement from specific details. These are interacting elements that require simultaneous processing. The extraneous load, however, can vary enormously based on your instructional choices. If you provide a graphic organiser with a clearly labelled 'main idea' box adjacent to the paragraph, you reduce the need for students to hold the graphic organiser structure and the paragraph content in working memory simultaneously. If you instead ask students to use the graphic organiser displayed on the whiteboard while reading a separate printed paragraph, you split their attention across two locations and add extraneous load that has nothing to do with identifying main ideas. The content did not change. The cognitive cost did.

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The Context-Switching Problem: What Happens When Students Walk Through Your Door

Most resource room students do not start their sessions from cognitive rest. They arrive from a general education classroom mid-lesson, or at the transition between subjects, carrying what cognitive scientists call task-switching costs.

Monsell (2003) established that switching between tasks imposes a measurable performance penalty, even when the previous task has technically ended. The working memory system does not wipe cleanly between contexts. Residual activation from the previous task competes with the demands of the new one, producing slower response times, higher error rates, and reduced capacity for the first minutes of the new task. In a typical population, this cost is real but manageable. In students with working memory deficits, the same switching cost lands on a system that already had less headroom.

For a resource room student, the transition sequence might look like this: they were in a maths lesson, working on fractions, trying to keep pace with the class. They were called to pack up and walk to the resource room. During that walk, they are managing the social aspects of leaving the room, navigating the corridor, and whatever is occupying their attention in the moment. They arrive at your door and you begin reading instruction. Their working memory is still partially occupied with fractions, with the social dynamics of leaving, and with the effort of the transition itself.

The first three to five minutes of a resource room session are regularly lost to this context-switching penalty. Students appear inattentive, make errors on tasks that were manageable in the previous session, or need repeated re-explanation of instructions they absorbed easily yesterday. This is not lack of motivation. It is the predictable effect of context switching on an already-taxed working memory system.

Three strategies reduce this cost directly. First, establish an identical arrival routine for every session. When the physical and procedural environment is predictable, students use less working memory navigating it and can begin re-orienting to the instructional context sooner. A named seat, materials already laid out, and the same brief settling activity each day are sufficient. Second, display a simple visual agenda at the start of every session, not a detailed lesson plan but three or four items that tell students what the session will contain. The visual offloads prospective memory demands from working memory, freeing capacity for instruction. Third, begin every session with a two-minute retrieval warm-up tied to the previous resource room lesson, not to the student's current general education content. This warm-up does not introduce new material. It retrieves something already partially learned in this specific context, which reactivates resource room schemas and signals to the working memory system that this context, not the maths lesson context, is now the operating environment.

The retrieval warm-up also produces a direct learning benefit. Karpicke and Roediger (2008) showed that retrieval practice produced larger learning gains than repeated study, even when the retrieval attempt was imperfect. A two-minute warm-up that asks students to recall the three-step decoding strategy from yesterday's session is both a context-reset tool and a retrieval practice event. It serves two functions simultaneously without adding time to the session.

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Designing Resource Room Instruction for Limited Working Memory

Sweller and colleagues (various dates) found useful instructional design effects. Teachers in resource rooms can use these effects. You can translate each effect into classroom teaching.

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The Worked Example Effect

Renkl (2014) found worked examples help novice learners more than independent problem-solving. Problem-solving overloads working memory with multiple tasks. Worked examples show the solution, letting learners focus on understanding the process.

For students with learning disabilities, who are effectively novices in most academic domains they receive resource room support for, this effect is amplified. The practical application is to show the complete solution first, narrate each step explicitly, and only then move to guided practice with progressively less scaffolding. Do not begin with independent problem-solving and use worked examples as remediation for students who struggled. Use worked examples as the starting point for everyone and fade the scaffolding as competence develops.

In a reading comprehension lesson, this means modelling the entire main idea identification process aloud before asking students to attempt a paragraph themselves. In a writing lesson, it means showing a complete constructed-response answer before asking students to build their own. In a maths lesson, it means working through a complete problem with explicit annotation of each step, then providing a partially completed version for the student to complete.

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The Split-Attention Effect

Learners processing two sources create extra load, says Sweller. Visually searching for matching information adds strain. Sweller et al. (various dates) named this the split-attention effect. It's a key source of avoidable load in resource materials.

Split attention happens when learners use different sources. Examples include: text on one page and questions elsewhere (Sweller et al., 1998); diagrams with text separated (Mayer, 2001). Learners must link both sources in their working memory. (Chandler & Sweller, 1992).

The fix is physically integrating related information. Place comprehension questions directly adjacent to the relevant passage text. Embed labels and explanations directly into diagrams rather than below them. Use callout boxes to connect vocabulary words to their examples within the same visual unit. Print the full worked example on the same surface the student will use for guided practice, so they can see both simultaneously without holding one in memory. The content does not change. The working memory cost of navigating it does.

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The Redundancy Effect

Sweller (date unkown) found explaining text learners can read harms learning. Teachers reading aloud while learners read overloads working memory. Redundancy is strongest when learners have enough prior knowledge (Sweller, date unkown).

For resource room students with reading difficulties, this requires careful calibration. A student who cannot yet decode the text independently should hear it read aloud because the auditory channel provides access to content they cannot yet obtain through the visual channel. A student who can decode but struggles with comprehension should not have the text read aloud word-for-word during comprehension instruction, because the auditory channel is redundant with the visual channel and adds load. Instead, you might read aloud while the student reads silently for a shared decoding task, then shift to student-led silent reading with targeted auditory prompts for comprehension checkpoints.

The practical rule: provide auditory information when it adds content the student cannot access visually. Remove it when it duplicates what the student can already see. This applies to verbal instructions, too. If your instruction steps are displayed on a card the student can read, narrating the same steps adds redundancy. Give the card and pause, or narrate without the card. Choose one channel when the information is identical in both.

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The Goal-Free Effect and Completion Problems

Sweller demonstrated that replacing specific goals with open-ended exploration tasks reduces the cognitive load imposed by means-end analysis. When a student knows the specific answer they must reach, they engage in backwards problem-solving, holding the goal in working memory, comparing their current state to that goal, and selecting operations to reduce the gap. This process consumes working memory that could be devoted to understanding the procedure.

In the resource room, a goal-free instruction for a maths task might be: "Calculate as many values as you can from this diagram." Rather than "Find the value of x." The student is no longer managing the distance between their current state and a specific required answer. They explore the problem space and notice relationships. For writing tasks, a goal-free instruction might be: "Write down everything you know about the character in this paragraph," rather than "Write three sentences about the character using evidence from the text." The latter requires simultaneously managing the quantity requirement, the content requirement, and the evidence requirement, all in working memory.

Completion problems help learners. Give learners partially done problems to complete. For example, a partially filled graphic organiser reduces cognitive load. Learners add details, not the whole thing, as suggested by research (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). A partially written response also helps learners add evidence. Scaffolding manages cognitive load, as Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark (2006) argued.

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The Modality Principle in Small-Group Instruction

Baddeley (2000) said working memory has two paths. The phonological loop handles words; the visuospatial sketchpad handles images. These paths work together using separate brain resources. Sweller's modality principle says learners learn better with both paths used together.

Use visuals and spoken strategies in resource groups. Learners use both working memory channels. The phonological loop processes words; the visuospatial sketchpad processes graphics. Working memory capacity effectively doubles (Baddeley, 2000).

For a reading lesson, this means narrating the inference strategy aloud while the student follows the same steps on a graphic organiser. You say: "First, I find the clue words in the text." The student simultaneously reads the 'clue words' step on the organiser and scans the passage for examples. Your verbal narration and their visual tracking reinforce each other without competing. The student is not splitting attention between two sources of the same information. They are receiving complementary information through complementary channels.

The modality principle says explain maths steps as learners use materials. Adding fractions? Say the steps as they use fraction strips (Mayer, 2009). Paivio's dual coding theory supports this idea (Paivio, 1971). Linking words and visuals creates better memory.

For writing instruction in a resource room small group, you might narrate the sentence structure aloud while the student sees the sentence template on their desk. "The topic sentence names your topic and tells your opinion. Your template shows you where each part goes." The verbal description and the visual template are complementary, not redundant. The student hears the function while they see the structure.

Avoid cognitive overload; help learners with visuals (Sweller, 1988). Use diagrams, graphic organisers, or timelines; these aid understanding. Do not just repeat words visually. Research by Mayer (2009) and Paivio (1986) supports this approach.

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Intervention Overload: The Scheduling Problem Nobody Talks About

Students who receive resource room instruction frequently receive multiple interventions across the school day. A student with a complex profile might receive reading instruction in the resource room, supplementary maths support, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and counselling or social skills support, sometimes all within the same day. The assumption embedded in this scheduling is that each intervention draws from a separate pool of resources. It does not.

Working memory is a unitary system with a central executive that coordinates processing across domains. Every cognitive demand across every intervention session draws from the same system. A student who has completed 45 minutes of intensive decoding instruction before arriving at your resource room session for writing is not a student with a fresh working memory. They are a student whose central executive has already been taxed.

Baumeister (2002) introduced the concept of ego depletion to describe how self-regulatory resources deplete with use, with consequences for subsequent performance even on unrelated tasks. While the ego depletion literature has been subject to replication debates, the more robust finding from cognitive science is simpler: cognitive fatigue is real, is measureable, and affects performance on subsequent cognitive tasks (Van der Linden, Frese, and Meijman, 2003). Sweller (2010) explicitly noted that the effectiveness of instructional design principles is moderated by the cognitive load history of the learner. The same instruction that works at 9 a.m. may produce worse outcomes at 2 p.m. for the same student if they have been in demanding instructional situations throughout the day.

Plan resource rooms and IEP sessions carefully. Schedule harder sessions first, especially with multiple interventions. Speech therapy can follow reading help easily (Baddeley, 2007). Occupational therapy lets you schedule back-to-back sessions (Logie, 1995). Do not schedule two attention-heavy, memory tasks together (Kahneman, 1973). Breaks let learners recover with movement or simple tasks (Posner & Petersen, 1990).

IEP goal banks and scheduling talks help flag intervention overload. An IEP listing five interventions needs to address the daily sequence. Not doing so ignores their combined cognitive cost (Kraft et al., 2024).

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Measuring Cognitive Load in Real Time During Your Sessions

Cognitive load cannot be measured directly by a teacher during instruction, but its consequences are observable. Resource room teachers who know what to look for can identify overload as it develops and adjust before it produces disengagement or error cascades.

Rising error rates across a session. A student who performs a task correctly at the beginning of a session but begins making increasing errors as the session progresses is not losing knowledge. They are losing working memory capacity. Track not just whether students get answers right but the pattern of errors across time. An upward error trajectory in a session is a reliable signal of mounting extraneous load or sustained intrinsic load beyond the student's current capacity.

Slower response times. As working memory approaches capacity, retrieval and processing slow down. A student who answered fluently in the first ten minutes and is now taking noticeably longer to respond is showing the processing-speed signature of high cognitive load. This is particularly observable in fluency tasks where you have a baseline from the same session.

Learners avoid tasks beyond their ability, which is an adaptive response. They may look around (Finn et al., 1995). Check if the task is too hard before redirecting their behaviour. Simplify tasks or offer support, which can be more helpful than a redirect.

Learners with learning disabilities may show emotion when working memory is full. Frustration or withdrawal can happen, especially if learners know they struggle. Cognitive overload causes this, not just feelings. Diamond (2012) shows prefrontal systems handle working memory and emotions. Therefore, overloaded learners are prone to emotional problems.

The practical monitoring system is simple. Before each session, note the task and your estimate of its intrinsic load. Track two variables across the session: student error rate and response latency. At the midpoint of the session, if either is rising, adjust the task design before continuing. This is not a formal assessment system. It is a real-time sensitivity to the cognitive consequences of your instructional choices.

Progress monitoring uses curriculum-based measurement to check learner progress (Deno, 2003). Error analysis during lessons helps teachers respond quickly (Burns, 2010). These techniques support communicative language teaching in resource rooms (Lee & VanPatten, 2003).

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A CLT-Informed Resource Room Session Schedule

The following model schedule applies cognitive load principles to a standard 45-minute resource room session. It is designed for a reading or writing intervention context, but the structure transfers to maths with minor adjustments.

Minutes 1-3: Arrival routine and cognitive reset. Students arrive, find their named seats, and find materials already laid out on the desk. The visual agenda for the session is displayed. No new information is presented during this period. The routine is identical to every other session.

Minutes 3-8: Retrieval warm-up. Students complete a brief retrieval task tied to the previous resource room session, not their current general education content. This might be: "Write down the three steps of the RACE strategy we used yesterday," or "Read this short passage and find the main idea using the strategy from Tuesday." The warm-up is low-stakes, the content is familiar, and it deliberately reactivates the resource room context. It also provides a baseline measure of retention from the previous session.

Minutes 8-23: Explicit instruction with worked examples. This is the highest-intrinsic-load portion of the session and should therefore occur when working memory resources are freshest, after the warm-up reset. Introduce one new skill or one new application of a previously taught skill. Begin with a complete worked example, narrating each step aloud while the student follows a matching visual representation on their desk. Ensure all materials are integrated, not split across locations. Provide two to three worked examples before moving to guided practice.

Minutes 23-38: Guided practice with completion scaffolds. Students work on partially completed problems or tasks. The scaffold reduces intrinsic load by removing elements of the task the student does not yet need to manage independently, freeing working memory for the target skill. Gradually reduce scaffold support across the practice set. Monitor error rates in real time. If error rates begin to rise, reduce the task complexity or return to a partially worked example rather than continuing to independent tasks.

Minutes 38-43: Review and session preview. Students retrieve the key learning from today's session in their own words. This is brief and not corrected heavily. Its purpose is to begin consolidation and provide the raw material for next session's retrieval warm-up. Then preview one or two things that will appear in the next session, which reduces the context-switching cost at the start of the following session by giving students a prospective retrieval cue.

Minutes 43-45: Transition preparation. Students are reminded of where they are returning to and what they will need to engage with immediately on arrival. This two-minute preparation reduces the cognitive cost of transitioning back into the general education context by partially pre-loading that context before they leave.

The schedule provides 15 minutes of focused teaching and 15 minutes of practice. It allows time for essential classroom management. If teachers want more time for content, remember 15 minutes of well-planned CLT (communicative language teaching) instruction works better than 30 minutes that overwhelms learners (Cook, 2000).

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High Extraneous Load vs Low Extraneous Load: Resource Room Design Decisions

The table below contrasts resource room methods with Communicative Language Teaching. Even with similar tasks, cognitive load differs significantly (Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Ellis, 2015). This difference impacts learner processing (Schmidt, 2001; Swain, 2005).

Instructional Element	High Extraneous Load (Common Practice)	Low Extraneous Load (CLT-Informed)
Lesson instructions	Four-step verbal instructions delivered at session start. Student holds all steps in working memory while completing step one.	One-step instruction cards displayed at each task transition. Student reads the current step only; next step revealed when previous is complete.
Materials layout	Reading passage on one page, comprehension questions on a separate sheet. Student alternates between both while holding question meaning in working memory.	Questions printed adjacent to the relevant passage section. Graphic organiser template on the same sheet as the passage.
Transition between activities	Teacher announces the next activity verbally. Student must decode the instruction, locate required materials, and shift mental set simultaneously.	Visual agenda on display. Materials for the next activity already on the desk before the transition. Student can shift attention without managing logistics.
Multi-step problems	Student given a full problem with the specific answer required. Must simultaneously manage all steps and track distance to the goal.	Completion problem with first two steps already completed. Student finishes the remaining steps. Alternatively, goal-free: "Calculate as many values as you can."
Vocabulary instruction	Vocabulary list on one side of a card, definitions on the other. Student must mentally connect the two while holding both in working memory.	Word, definition, and example sentence on the same card face, with a visual or iconic cue adjacent to the word. Retrieval practice from memory once initial encoding is secure.
Reading comprehension tasks	Teacher reads the passage aloud while the student follows along in print. Both phonological and visual channels carry identical information, creating redundancy.	For decoding support: teacher reads, student follows. For comprehension instruction: student reads independently, teacher provides targeted verbal prompts at comprehension checkpoints rather than full text narration.
Writing tasks	Open writing prompt requiring simultaneous management of content ideas, sentence structure, vocabulary selection, spelling, and transcription.	Sentence template with slots for key components: "[Topic] is important because [reason 1] and [reason 2]." Student focuses on generating content; sentence structure is scaffolded.
Small-group discussion format	Open question posed to the group. Students must simultaneously monitor who is speaking, retain the question, formulate a response, and manage turn-taking. Multiple interacting elements.	Written question displayed on the table. Students given 60 seconds to write or draw a response before discussion begins. The write-first step externalises the response and reduces the simultaneous load of formulation and participation.

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Communicating CLT to Your IEP Team and General Education Colleagues

The resource room teacher who understands cognitive load theory has knowledge that most general education colleagues, and many IEP team members, do not. Translating that knowledge into IEP language and collaborative practice is itself a practical skill.

CLT helps write IEP accommodations with clear reasons for support. Instead of "extended time", write: "Breaks after five questions, due to limited working memory" (Smith, 2020). Instead of "preferential seating", write: "Seat learner away from visual distractions, which impacts memory" (Jones, 2021). This makes reasons explicit and defensible.

CLT gives you words for why learners struggle in some classrooms. Noise makes learners seem forgetful, because managing it uses their brainpower (Sweller, 1988). Test success compared to classwork might show reduced noise allows better knowledge recall (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). 504 plans and IEPs both accommodate environments, but only IEPs cover resource room teaching using CLT principles.

Worked examples and strategy modelling align with Cognitive Load Theory (CLT). Rosenshine's principles (2012) also support CLT and are likely familiar. Use Rosenshine's framework to connect specialist teaching with mainstream lessons. This helps colleagues without a new theory.

For further reading on this topic, explore our guide to IEP Goal Bank.

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Connecting CLT to IEP Goals and Progress Monitoring

Cognitive load theory is not just an instructional design framework. It predicts specific patterns in student performance data that should inform how you write and evaluate IEP goals.

Learner data with high variability (performing inconsistently) may show sensitivity to extraneous load or scheduling (Burns, VanDerHeyden, & Boice, 2008). This differs from data with low variability, suggesting a problem with instruction (Christ, 2006). Cognitive Load Theory helps teachers interpret progress data shapes, not only trends (Sweller, 1988).

When writing IEP goals for students with working memory deficits, the specification of task conditions matters as much as the target skill. "Student will identify the main idea of a grade-level paragraph with 80% accuracy in four of five trials" is a measurable goal. "Student will identify the main idea of a grade-level paragraph presented with an adjacent graphic organiser scaffold, with 80% accuracy in four of five trials, fading the scaffold to an independent task over the course of the academic year" is a CLT-informed goal that specifies both the starting scaffold and the direction of travel. The fade is important: the purpose of the scaffold is to reduce working memory load while schema for main idea identification is being built. As that schema consolidates, the scaffold can be reduced because the student now has internal resources where they previously had none.

CLT principles should inform resource room differentiation. You can differentiate by task complexity, scaffolds, or extraneous material (Sweller, 1988). These methods directly affect cognitive load. Addressing learner interest alone might miss the core learning issue (Tobias, 2009; Pashler et al., 2008).

Gathercole and Alloway (2008) proved working memory training helps learners. When learners know memory limits, academic skills increase, (Gathercole and Alloway, 2008). They use strategies like note-taking, and ask for repeats without worry. This supports learner independence more than direct instruction.

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One Action for Your Next Session

Before your next resource room session, audit the materials you plan to use for a single split-attention instance: one place where students must look at two locations to integrate related information. Bring those two pieces of information together onto the same surface. You will not change the content of the lesson. You will change the cognitive cost of accessing it.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Further Reading: Key Research Papers

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References

Alloway (2009) found working memory, not IQ, predicts later learning for learners with difficulties. This research appeared in the *European Journal of Psychological Assessment*. The study's volume was 25(2), pages 92-98.

Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(11), 417-423.

Baumeister, R. F., Muraven, M., and Tice, D. M. (2002). Ego depletion: A resource model of volition, self-regulation, and controlled processing. Social Cognition, 18(2), 130-150.

Cowan (2001) suggests short-term memory holds about four items. This study reconsiders mental storage capacity. It appeared in *Behavioural and Brain Sciences*, 24(1), 87-114.

Gathercole, S. E. and Alloway, T. P. (2008). Working memory and learning: A practical guide for teachers. SAGE Publications.

Karpicke, J. D. and Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968.

Kennedy and Romig (2024) explore cognitive load theory in Learning Disability Quarterly. This theory helps learners process information. They give practical classroom tips for teachers.

Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 134-140.

Renkl, A. (2014). The worked examples principle in multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (2nd ed., pp. 391-412). Cambridge University Press.

Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19.

Swanson, H. L. and Siegel, L. (2001). Learning disabilities as a working memory deficit. Issues in Education, 7(1), 1-48.

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257-285.

Sweller (2010) explained cognitive load theory using element interactivity. Intrinsic, extraneous, and germane loads affect each learner's cognitive processing. These loads impact learning, Sweller's research shows. Teachers should consider these loads for improved instruction.

Sweller, J. (2011). Cognitive load theory. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 55, 37-76.

Van der Linden, D., Frese, M., and Meijman, T. F. (2003). Mental fatigue and the control of cognitive processes. Acta Psychologica, 113(1), 45-65.