Interactions between the isolated–interactive elements effect and levels of learner expertise: experimental evidence from an accountancy class

Abstract

This study investigated interactions between the isolated-interactive elements effect and levels of learner expertise with first year undergraduate university accounting students. The isolated-interactive elements effect occurs when learning is facilitated by initially presenting elements of information sequentially in an isolated form rather than in a fully interactive form. The expertise reversal effect occurs when the relevant advantage of one instructional technique over another reverses depending on the learner's level of expertise. The results provided support for the predicted interaction with lower expertise students benefitting from the isolated elements instructional method, while students with more expertise learned more from the interacting elements format.Keywords Cognitive load theory Á Expertise reversal effect Á Isolated-interactive elements effect Á Accountancy training

Story of a Research Program

“…Paul Ayres devised important experiments on the isolated elements effect (Ayres, 2006). Paul Blayney, an accountancy academic at Sydney University who completed a PhD with me, demonstrated many of the conditions required for the isolated elements effect by relating it to the element interactivity and expertise reversal effects (Blayney, Kalyuga, & Sweller, 2010).…”

Getting the point: Tracing worked examples enhances learning

“…The second idea to manipulate intrinsic cognitive load is a strategy using a twophase isolated-interacting elements learning approach (Pollock, Chandler, & Sweller, 2002), referred to as "the isolated elements effect" (Blayney, Kalyuga, & Sweller, 2010;. By dividing a highly complex learning task into several isolated elements, students are allowed to learn these elements with reduced intrinsic cognitive load, instead of dealing with all the elements simultaneously at the risk of overloading working memory.…”

Educational Implications of Expertise Reversal Effects in Learning and Performance of Complex Cognitive and Sensorimotor Skills

“…Reisslein, Atkinson, Seeling, and Reisslein (2006) demonstrated that, while novice learners benefited more from example-problem pairs (each worked example followed by a similar practice problem), more experienced learners benefited more from problem-example pairs (practice problems with accompanying worked examples for reference if needed) and faded worked examples (a series of examples with increasingly more steps at the end of the solution procedure omitted). Blayney, Kalyuga, and Sweller (2010) and Pollock, Chandler, and Sweller (2002) demonstrated that initially presenting interactive elements of complex information or procedural steps sequentially in an isolated form rather than in a fully interactive form (isolatedinteractive elements technique) was beneficial for novices due to reduced levels of cognitive load. The same technique was not of any advantage for learners with higher levels of prior knowledge in the domain who had to cross-reference the sequence of simplified elements of information with their available knowledge of more complex structures, thus using up additional cognitive resources.…”