An instructional design for new cognitive structure construction in native language on second language learning

The aim of this study was to design a second language instruction through the construction of new cognitive structures in the mother tongue, and to determine its effect on the learner's cognitive load and achievement in learning complex structures. The study was undertaken in a public university in Istanbul with 79 prep school students and designed as a quasi-experimental study. A subjective cognitive load scale developed by Paas (1992), and an achievement test were utilized as the data collection tools. A covariance analysis (ANCOVA) was employed to determine student achievement between the experiment and control groups, the results of which produced a significant difference in favor of the experiment group. The results of the one-way ANOVA showed that there is a statistically significant decrease with regards to the cognitive load of the students in the experiment group. The efficiency of instruction was also measured utilizing efficiency formula developed by Paas and van Merrienboer (1994). The results corroborated the hypothesis that when designed in a way to construct new structures in the native language, thereby reducing the cognitive load, this instruction yields to an increase in the achievement of the students for the learning of complex structures in second language. The results call for more attention that the instructional design utilized as the treatment of this study is efficient on the academic achievement of the students in their learning.