Comments on the preceding article which examined elaboration theory and offered suggestions for updating it to reflect new knowledge. Highlights include the simplifying conditions method; internal versus external knowledge structures; connectionism and authentic tasks; content structure as organizing structure; ill-structured domains; and…

Discusses elaboration theory, an instructional design model for sequencing and organizing courses that is based on cognitive research, and offers suggestions for updating the model to reflect new knowledge. Topics addressed include knowledge representation, including content structure; sequencing issues, including microworld design and cognitive…

Reviews concepts proposed by researchers in linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence, who have applied their knowledge and skills to the study of human information processing--i.e., memory content, storage, encoding, and retrieval. Guidelines derived from theory for use by instructional designers and subject specialists in…

This paper offers a critique of elaboration theory (ET) based on recent cognitive research and offers suggestions for updating the model to reflect new knowledge. It begins by summarizing the basic strategies of this model for sequencing and organizing courses of instruction: (1) organizing structure; (2) simple-to-complex sequence; (3) sequencing…