The effect of web-based instruction designed by using fading method on the cognitive load, academic achievement and transfer ability of students

This research has been conducted to determine the effect of web-based instruction implementing fading method on the cognitive load, academic success and transfer ability of students. The independent variable of the research is the web-based instruction environment. This environment has two sub-levels, one implemented with fading method designed according to the principles of cognitive load theory and the other implemented without this method. The dependent variables of the research are cognitive load, academic success and transfer ability of students.The sampling of research was comprised of 47 second year Educational Technology B.S. students enrolled in Programming Languages-I (Introduction to Programming) course studying at Gazi Faculty of Education, Gazi University in 2011?2012 Fall semester. In the research which had a quasi-experimental design, the class using the web based instruction environment containing fading method with examples having increasing number of incomplete steps had 25 students, whereas the other class using fully worked-out examples instead of fading method had 22 students. Total number of 20 programming problems, two after each of the sub-subjects in the instructional system, were used to determine academic success and transfer ability of students. After each one of the problems, a cognitive load questionnaire was used to detect the cognitive load of the students.No significant difference has been found between the cognitive load scores of the students in the two different groups when the academic achievement and transfer ability assessment problems have been taken into account separately.According to the analysis of the problems designed to assess the academic achievement of the students, significant difference has been found between the two groups in favor of the group that used the fading method of the cognitive load theory. Effect size has been identified as great.According to the analysis of the problems designed to assess the transfer ability of the students, no significant difference has been identified between the two groups.Efficiency analysis conducted with the scores of the academic achievement problems and the cognitive load encountered while solving these problems resulted in a difference of 0,6111 points in favor of the group that used the fading method. The maximum difference between any two efficiency values can be 2,828 as dictated by the method used.Efficiency analysis conducted with the scores of the transfer ability problems and the cognitive load encountered while solving these problems resulted in a difference of 0,1854 points in favor of the group that used the fading method.Statistically significant difference in academic success and insignificant difference in transfer ability of students in favor of the fading group have been obtained with similar levels of cognitive load in two different groups. This proves a better efficiency for the instructional environment implementing the fading method. As a result, fading method can be used successfully in the computer-based instructional environments implementing the subjects of high intrinsic load and which are accepted as hard-to-learn.Keywords: Cognitive load, computer programming education, fading method, web-based instruction, efficiency in instruction, transfer ability.