Which strategy reduces extraneous cognitive load during instruction?

• A. Add more decorative visuals during instruction.
• B. Provide extended lectures with no prompts.
• C. Provide immediate feedback and chunk content.
• D. Increase page length and scrolling.

Answer: (C)

Reducing extraneous cognitive load happens when instruction is shaped so learners don’t have to waste mental effort on anything unnecessary. Providing immediate feedback helps learners quickly correct errors and misconceptions, so they don’t have to hold onto wrong ideas or reprocess them, freeing working memory to focus on building accurate understanding. Chunking content into smaller, meaningful units aligns with how working memory can handle information, making it easier to encode and connect new ideas with prior knowledge. In contrast, decorative visuals not tied to the learning goals add processing demands that don’t support the objective, extending the cognitive burden. Long lectures with no prompts encourage passive listening and guesswork, which increases split attention and the cognitive resources spent on following a continuous, unstructured stream. More scrolling and longer pages similarly drain attention and working memory on navigation rather than the content itself. That combination—immediate feedback plus chunked content—directly minimizes extraneous load and supports efficient learning.