Collaborative learning is a widely used instructional technique, but factors determining its effectiveness still are unclear. Cognitive load theory was used to examine the effects of prior collaborative experience and density of distribution of information amongst learners on short-term retention and delayed retention tests, as well as cognitive efficiency of collaborative learning and its outcomes. Data obtained with 240 secondary school students showed that groups with experience in collaboration outperformed and were more cognitively efficient than inexperienced groups, and low information density increased performance during the learning process. Also, when tasks required processing high information density, experienced groups were more cognitively efficient than inexperienced groups. For tasks with low information density no difference was found. These results provide instructional implications for designing effective collaborative learning environments.

中文翻译：

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小组经验和信息分配对协作学习的影响

协作学习是一种广泛使用的教学技术，但尚不清楚确定其有效性的因素。认知负荷理论用于检验先前的协作经验和学习者之间的信息分布密度对短期保留和延迟保留测试的影响，以及协作学习及其结果的认知效率。从240名中学生那里获得的数据表明，具有协作经验的小组比没有经验的小组表现更好，并且在认知上的效率更高，而且信息密度低会提高学习过程中的表现。同样，当任务需要处理高信息密度时，有经验的小组比没有经验的小组在认知上更有效率。对于信息密度低的任务，没有发现差异。这些结果为设计有效的协作学习环境提供了指导意义。