Instructional design consequences of an analogy between evolution by natural selection and human cognitive architecture

Abstract. Evolution by natural selection may be characterized as a system in which a large store of genetic information will persist indefinitely while it remains coordinated with its environment but will continuously produce small random variations that are tested for environ-mental effectiveness. In any environment, effective variations will persist while ineffective variations will disappear. Similarly, human cognitive architecture includes a large store of information held in long-term memory that coordinates our cognitive activities. A very limited working memory tests the effectiveness of small variations to long-term memory with effective variations altering long-term memory while ineffective variations are lost. Both an existing genetic code and information in long-term memory provide a central executive that guides behaviour. Such a central executive is unavailable when an environment alters or when work-ing memory must be used to deal with novel information. A major function of instructional design is to provide the otherwise missing structure of a central executive when dealing with novel information and to reduce that structural support as knowledge accumulates in long-term memory. Cognitive load theory both provides instructional design principles that would be difficult to devise without its particular view of human cognitive architecture and throw