These memory structures and their relations have direct implications for instructional design (e.g., Sweller, 1999; Sweller, van Merriënboer & Paas, 1998).
Inquiry-based instruction requires the learner to search a problem space for problem-relevant information.
All problem-based searching makes heavy demands on working memory.
Furthermore, that working memory load does not contribute to the accumulation of knowledge in long-term memory because while working memory is being used to search for problem solutions, it is not available and cannot be used to learn.
Indeed, it is possible to search for extended periods of time with quite minimal alterations to long-term memory (e.g., see Sweller, Mawer, & Howe, 1982).
The goal of instruction is rarely simply to search for or discover information.
The goal is to give learners specific guidance about how to cognitively manipulate information in ways that are consistent with a learning goal, and store the result in long-term memory.
The consequences of requiring novice learners to search for problem solutions using a limited working memory or the mechanisms by which unguided or minimally guided instruction might facilitate change in long-term memory appear to be routinely ignored.
The result is a set of differently named but similar instructional approaches requiring minimal guidance that are disconnected from much that we know of human cognition.
Recommending minimal guidance was understandable when Bruner (1961) proposed discovery learning as an instructional tool because the structures and relations that constitute human cognitive architecture had not yet been mapped.
We now are in a quite different environment because we know much more about the structures, functions, and characteristics of working and long-term memory; the relations between them; and their consequences for learning and problem solving.
This new understanding has been the basis for systematic research and development of instructional theories that reflect our current understanding of cognitive architecture (e.g., Anderson, 1996; Glaser, 1987).
This work should be central to the design of effective, guided instruction.
Of course, suggestions based on theory that minimally guided instruction should have minimal effectiveness are worth little without empirical evidence.
Empirical work comparing guided and unguided instruction is discussed after a review of the current arguments for minimal guidance.
Source : https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1?needAccess=true
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