ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1628047
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Directions of Research and Measurement in Cognitive Load TheoryView all articles
Rethinking pre-training: cognitive load implications for learners with varying prior knowledge
Provisionally accepted
- 1National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
- 2University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
- 3United Arab Emirates University, El Ain, United Arab Emirates
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This study examines how prior knowledge and pre-training relate to cognitive load during problem-solving. Grounded in cognitive load theory, it investigates whether pre-training facilitates learning by reducing cognitive load or imposes redundant information for learners with higher prior knowledge. In an experiment with 136 university students, pre-training was implemented through concept maps and a glossary introducing essential terms and procedures before problem-solving. Results revealed that learners with higher prior knowledge experienced lower intrinsic and extraneous load and higher germane load during problem-solving compared to learners with lower prior knowledge, suggesting enhanced schema refinement rather than redundancy. Pre-training consistently reduced extraneous load across all learners, including those with higher prior knowledge, challenging the expected expertise reversal effect. While learners with lower prior knowledge did not show significant reductions in intrinsic load, they benefited from decreased extraneous load during problem-solving. These findings highlight the value of pre-training as an instructional strategy and underscore the importance of aligning instructional design with learners’ existing knowledge.
Keywords: Cognitive Load Theory, Prior Knowledge, Pre-training, Expertise reversal effect, Redundancy effect, instructional design, concept mapping
Received: 13 May 2025; Accepted: 25 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gorbunova, Kapuza, Chen and Costley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Anastasiia Kapuza, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
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