Is Inquiry Learning Unjust? Cognitive Load Theory and the Democratic Ends of Education

Abstract

argue that an array of inquiry-based pedagogies widely promoted in teacher preparation programmes are out of step with current cognitive science and should be eliminated for novice learners. According to these cognitive load theorists, inquiry-based pedagogies are likely to increase achievement gaps between the lowest and highest achieving students while reducing total learning. On almost any theory of justice in educational provision, an educational practice that results in the acquisition of fewer total educational goods by students and greater inequality in the distribution of goods will be considered unjust. I argue that inquiry-based pedagogies can be defended, even for novice learners, not as means to other goods but as embodiments of the least controversial liberal-democratic educational ends. I claim that once understood as part of the ends of liberal democratic education, inquiry-based pedagogies cannot be rightly eliminated from educational pathways. In addition, I argue that by interpreting cognitive load theory in light of uncontroversial liberal democratic educational ends, central claims about instructional design that are advanced by both cognitive load theorists and their opponents are either moderated or overturned. Most notably, the claim that there are no domain-general inquiry skills which need to be taught, which is advanced by cognitive load theorists against inquiry theorists, is revealed to be self-refuting. Integrating cognitive load theory into processes of liberal democratic problem-solving turns out to be a biologically secondary domain-general inquiry skill of just the sort cognitive load theorists deny exists.

Computer-assisted instruction versus inquiry-based learning: The importance of working memory capacity

“…For different reasons, IBL could be equally challenging for the attentional system. According to Cognitive Load theorists (e.g., [ 42 , 54 ]), classic IBL relies little on previous explicit exposure to content, thus preventing novice students from building a mental model of the material itself in long-term memory [ 55 , 56 ]. This may result in IBL instructional designs that increase cognitive load [ 55 , 57 ] and impair retention [ 58 ].…”

Corrigendum for ‘Is inquiry learning unjust? Cognitive load theory and the democratic ends of education’ by Tanchuk (2020)

“…In Tanchuk (2020), there was an error in the following sentence https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12435:…”