ABSTRACT THE EFFECTS OF COGNITIVE LOAD IN LEARNING FROM GOAL BASED SCENARIO DESIGNED MULTIMEDIA LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR LEARNERS HAVING DIFFERENT WORKING MEMORY CAPACITIES Kili&ccedil / , Eylem Ph.D., Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zahide Yildirim December 2009, 201 pages The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of principles aiming to reduce extraneous cognitive load in learning from goal based scenario designed multimedia learning environment for learners having different working memory capacities. In addition, the effects of goal based scenario and the principles of cognitive load theory on students&rsquo / perception, motivation and satisfaction has been explored. Two versions of the multimedia were developed for this study. In the first version (+CLT), the principles such as split attention, multimedia, modality, redundancy, coherence and signaling was applied. In the second version (-CLT), these principles were violated. Mixed method was used and two studies were conducted for this study. The first study was conducted with 82 ninth grade students from one of the Anatolian High School in Ankara. However, the participants&rsquo / working memory capacities were found very close to each other. Therefore, the second study was conducted with 54 11th grade students having different working memory capacity from the same school. The result of the first study showed that the cognitive load principles aim at reducing extraneous cognitive load increased learning gains, decreased invested mental effort and affected students&rsquo / motivation and satisfaction in positive ways. On the other hand, when cognitive load principles were not considered, this decreased learning gains, increased invested mental effort and affected students&rsquo / motivation and satisfaction in negative ways. The result of the second study showed that the only difference between high and low WMC students found on the number of errors made in sequencing meiosis sub phases in favor of the first version (+CLT). This might be explained by the task characteristics in that the difference between high and low WMC individuals can be observed when task demanded attention. It can be concluded that students benefited from the cognitive load principles reducing extraneous cognitive based on the findings of both studies.

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