Coherence Analysis can be read here.
Lets be frank, it can be told with a certain level of confidence that a teacher’s life professional or otherwise can be considered cluttered; at least in the lessons that they teach. It is with every attempt to make life easier by making lessons, presentations, etc. simple to follow, but somewhere in the translation from the frontal lobes of the teacher to the eyes and ears of the learner something go awry, losing the learner to material that is not supportive of the instructional goal is the Coherence Principle. This principle states simply to create a learning environment (materials, presentations, lectures) that is straightforward and is not flowered by extraneous words, graphics and sounds that would take away from the learners’ chances cognitively learning.
So true, it is hard to imagine any educator that has not been swayed by the placing of seductive details within a presentation so as to give the lesson some much needed pizazz, yet unknowingly adding to the confusion of the learner and causing cognitive overload. Weeding, referenced by Mayer and Moreno (2003), gives insight into removing sounds, graphics or words that cannot enhance the instructional goal although there is claim that properly placing any one of these three within a presentation can “promote deeper processing” (Clark and Mayer 2011) yet, there is still no evidence proving the effectiveness of that input.
Instructing future healthcare professionals can be challenging, especially if the learners have had no experience within this field, as an instructor my role must be carefully planned. Making a priority of engaging the learners’ interest is important but how many times have I jeopardized that learner by attempting to “jazz-up” my lectures/presentations only to cause some sort of cognitive overload? Outlines and lesson plans still reign in preparation for a class but factors of the Coherence Principle should not go overlooked.
Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R.E. (2011). e-Learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3rd ed). San Francisco: Wiley & Sons, Inc
Frederick Reyes: EDTECH Learning Log 