Teaching Complex Cognitive Skills: the Effects of Part-task and Whole-task Instructional Approaches on Acquisition and Transfer of a Complex Cognitive Skill

Recently, traditional instructional design methodologies have been criticized that they may be ineffective in reaching transfer of learning, particularly in complex learning domains. Recent instructional and learning theories tend to focus on authentic learning tasks that are based on real- world problems as the driving force for transfer of learning. The study compared a conventional instructional approach (called the Part-task approach) with a 4C/ID-model based instructional approach (called the Whole-task approach) to see if the 4C/ID approach promotes better transfer of learning in a complex learning domain. Results indicated that the whole-task group performed significantly better than the part-task group on a skill acquisition test and a transfer test. The findings from the study should help shed some light on this important area, and should be especially useful to professionals in Instructional Design and Training fields, or anyone else who may be interested in teaching complex cognitive skills.